Leading analysts have highlighted the value of Pronto Networks offering to service providers as well as the criticality of back-end OSS solutions for the growth of the public WLAN market. Below is an assortment of their comments:
Realizing the importance of back-office operations such as authentication, roaming, billing, and remote fault management, Pronto has created a modular OSS package for hotspot operators. In the case of both capex and opex, Pronto is able to minimize cost via remote hotspot operation and management.
The public WLAN market is one that represents great promise within the global wireless industry, said Richard Dean, program director of infrastructure integration and support services at IDC. However, the critical question that many firms are struggling with remains how the multiple providers competing for market share will sustain long-term profitability in an increasingly crowded environment. One area where that is already happening is in providing back-end software solutions to provision, deploy and manage hotspot networks. With Wi-Fi ubiquity on the horizon, back-end support for the network will be crucial to the success of public hotspots and can accelerate profitability for hotspot operators.
I doubt that public Wi-Fi networks can succeed as many in the industry predict because of the cost of backhaul and management of the network. However, I am a big fan of WiFi for the enterprise and home. While Tropos is addressing the backhaul problems, Pronto Networks has a solution to the network management problem.
SRG believes that public WLAN hot spots represent a significant revenue opportunity for service providers. However, in order to take advantage of this opportunity, service providers need a solution that can cost-effectively deploy and manage their hot spots. In SRG’s opinion, Pronto’s OSS is the only solution available today that integrates network provisioning, authentication, security, billing, roaming, and location based services, all in one highly integrated platform.