KDDI makes Wi-Fi major component of mobile broadband network

Carrier Wi-Fi may be moving slowly in the U.S., but if mobile operators want to see how a large-scale mobile data offload network is done, they need only to look across the Pacific.

Japanese CDMA operator KDDI is rolling out the mother of all Wi-Fi networks, deploying 10,000 access points initially with plans to scale to 100,000 access points in nine months. KDDI is using Ruckus Wireless’s long-range, high-powered Wi-Fi gear, specifically optimized to augment mobile networks. The distinction is important because KDDI isn't deploying the typical hotspot network covering cafes and airports, but an indoor and outdoor one designed to blanket with extra capacity high-traffic areas of its 3G and mobile broadband networks. KDDI’s Android smartphones will automatically log into the access points when available, routing huge volumes of data traffic off the wide area network, with its high operational costs and limited bandwidth, onto the unlicensed spectrum and then UQ Communications’ WiMAX network, which KDDI will use as backhaul.