1. Companies involved
Google Fiber, LiFi Consortium

2. Current Situation Radio waves According to the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2012:
Traditional Wi-Fi is through radio waves which represent a small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum so as demand for wireless connectivity grows the supply of available bandwidth diminishes
3G mobile networks rely on an increasingly congested system of around 1.4 million cellular radio masts worldwide source
Number of bytes we transmit through mobile devices is doubling every year, according to Cisco (2012) source
According to the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2012:
200 million households use Wi-Fi networks
750,000 Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide
Wi-Fi is used by over 700 million people
800 million new Wi-Fi devices every year source

3. WiFi Infographic: Hotel Lost Opportunities
According to Xirrus and Moonblink (two companies in wireless)
A 4-star hotel claimed they lost $120k in revenue in one year due to poor WiFi source
Survey of 53,000 hotels found WiFi was more important than free breakfeast and free parking
Hotels.com survery found 38% of people said free WiFi was a “make it or break it” factor when booking a hotel
80% of hotels offer internet speeds below 6 Mbps
Source

4. Uses Google Fiber FCC’s plan for free WiFi Starbucks and Google
Super fast WiFi being rolled out in select US cities
3 pricing plans, one of them is free each month ($300 installation fee) with unlimited data and another one is $70/month with speeds 10x faster than today’s internet
FCC’s plan for free WiFi
The Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan to buy back some frequencies from television stations and use them to give the country free and ubiquitous “super-WiFi” which Google and Microsoft support
Since it would be on the same frequencies that TV uses it could reach more places than traditional WiFi and the range at which devices can communicate would see a huge boost as well (Feb 2013) source
Starbucks and Google
All Starbucks locations in the US will have free Google WiFi instead of AT&T WiFi source

5. Challenges
Security
Encryption

6. WiFi Infographic: WiFi Security
26 million UK people use WiFi, that’s 41% of the UK population
Recent experiment showed 85% of mobile users connected to a network without knowing what they were connecting to
637,965,373 passwords leaked globally
33 million UK adults have used WiFi through cafes, hotels and public hotspots
1 Terabyte of data is estimated to be stolen everyday by hackers which is equivalent to 1 billion people having their login credentials stolen every day
Public WiFi users
51% use anti-virus software
40% use a firewall
14% use VPN
14% of
Cloud hotspots available in the UK
2011: 5,000
2012: 15,000 (due to the Olympics?)
2013: 16,000
Source

7. WiFi Infographic
71% of hospitals in North American have biomedical devices accessing the clinical WiFi Source
In 2013, 1 in 10 people in the world use WiFi
There are 10 billion wireless devices and 7 billion humans
In 2020 estimated that there will be 30 billion wireless devices with 8 billion humans, so 3.75 devices per person (finally catching up to the Italian average :-)
Source

8. Future According to Cisco in 2012 source:
In 2010, global mobile data traffic was 2.6x larger than in 2009
Global mobile data traffic will increase 26x from 2010 to 2015, a 92 percent compound annual growth rate
Average mobile connection speed will increase 10x from 2010 to 2015 (215 kbps to 2.2 Mbps)
By 2015, global mobile data traffic will consume 75 exabytes per year, which is equal to 75 times more than all IP traffic generated in 2000, or 19 billion DVDs, or 536 quadrillion SMS text messages

9. Future
WirelessHD Consortium and Wireless Gigabit Alliance are two manufacturers competing to deliver wireless 7x faster than today’s gigabit routers using the unlicensed 60GHz frequency band to offer more bandwidth than hardwired USB 3.0 connections source
Cellular and WiFi source
Some predict a seamless transition between cellular and WiFi with many little hubs
With Hotspot 2.0, once a user is authorized on the network it will allow the networked device to automatically find, select and connect to your preferred Wi-Fi and/or cellular networks and roam between Wi-Fi hotspot and to LTE and back again without needing to login back in
LiFi (Visible Light Communication (VLC) source
Light on 1, light off 0, different flickering of the light sends out different strings (all of which can’t be seen by the human eye) source
Visible light spectrum is 10,000x bigger than the radio frequency spectrum
Harald Hass uses light frequencies in LEDs to send a LiFi at up to 10 Gigabyters/second, fast enough to download an HD movie in 30 seconds and safe enough to use on an airplane
Demonstrated between two smartphones during the Vegas consumer electronics show in 2012
Requires no new infrastructure
Can switch between radio frequencies and traditional WiFi if the device’s light sensor is blocked
Can work on airplanes, underwater like at an oil rig and in cars so they can talk to each other

10. Future Hotspot 2.0 source Announced the following in June 2013
Public-access WiFi that automatically connects your phone to a WiFi network when you enter its range
The project is an extension of the nonprofit WiFi Alliance's Certified Passpoint system
In June 2011 Wi-Fi Alliance announced it’s plan to collaborate with and Wireless Broadband Alliance
Connections made via this system have WPA2 security protection, meaning information is safe from other users
Hotspot 2.0 connections are made without users having to search for a network, figure out a login and other modern WiFi hassles
When it becomes more widespread users can roam between different supported networks staying connected
New Apple iOS 7 will be Hotspot 2.0 enabled and Samsung's Galaxy S 4 currently has Hotspot 2.0 access
Hotspot 2.0’s success will depend on how widespread access points become

11. Future
Next Generation Hotspot (NGH) by Wireless Broadband Alliance source
Aim is to deliver a public Wi-Fi that is as easy and secure as cellular networks
Creating hotspots where devices can connect securely and automatically with no need to manually enter user names or passwords
Designed to be very secure
Help take the heat off mobile broadband at busy times
Key milestone would be to drive wireless broadband adoption globally
Phases:
Phase 1 (Completed): Secure and seamless authentication with automatic and network discovery and selection
Phase 2 (In Progress – Open for enrolment): Operator policy for Wi-Fi networks and automatic online signup
Phase 3 (To start in 3Q 2013): Explore new services based geo localization and advanced policy management