Security on publicly available Wi-Fi is, or should be, a concern for many consumers. Now Devicescape, which helps service providers integrate Wi-Fi and cellular together, is trying to remove some of the complexity around security.
The company is now offering Safetynet Curator so that operators can deliver improved security at a price point that makes it a realistic option for the mass market. The high cost and complexity of existing consumer security products keep uptake to a minimum, the company says.
Devicescape has created a crowd-sourced, cloud-managed network of more than 20 million amenity Wi-Fi hotspots monitored in real-time, which it calls the Curated Virtual Network (CVN). It offers access to its network to operators so that they can offer a quality-controlled and automatic Wi-Fi connectivity experience in public places.
Its Safetynet Curator solution gives end users added confidence that, when their operator connects them to Devicescape's CVN, their connection--and their private data--are better protected.
"From the end user's perspective public Wi-Fi is disorganized, inconsistent and difficult to access--security just adds to the problems," said Devicescape CEO Dave Fraser in a press release. "End users need everything to be easier, including integrated Wi-Fi and cellular access. In order to deliver the best data experience, mobile operators must respond to this demand by fixing these problems."
Safetynet Curator further enhances the experience by bolstering the security measures already built into the CVN with a virtual private network (VPN) connection that encrypts all IP traffic to and from the user's device when accessing the Internet from a CVN location.
The solution will evolve to offer the same benefits across public and carrier Wi-Fi, Hotspot 2.0 deployments and even private Wi-Fi in the home, the release said.
"2014 has seen Wi-Fi really hit the mainstream," Fraser said "The DSP, including Safetynet Curator, gives operators the tools to replicate on Wi-Fi what they already provide with cellular; a simple, secure, high-quality data experience. This is the experience operators monetize on their cellular networks. Now, with the CVN as an extension of those networks, they can monetize it in just the same way on Wi-Fi."
The company also shared new data showing that consumer consumption of cellular data grows significantly for the majority of users following the introduction of an integrated Wi-Fi and cellular service. Figures from commercial deployments of Devicescape's ABC (Always Best Connected) solution reveal a 17 percent increase in billable monthly cellular data use from 64 percent of end users.
Last month, Fraser told FierceWirelessTech that the company was seeing tremendous interest from carriers in improving the overall service experience by allowing cellular and Wi-Fi networks to work together, bolstered by Apple's introduction of Wi-Fi calling in iOS 8.
Safetynet Curator is available globally as a fully hosted service from Devicescape, thanks to server deployments in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and can be integrated with operators' existing infrastructure.
For more:
- see this press release and this release
- see this telecoms.com article
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