By Lynn Greiner
TORONTO – Especially in today’s world, everyone needs fast, reliable Internet, which increasingly includes fast, reliable Wi-Fi
At this week’s tenth annual ISP Summit, a panel composed of a customer, an ISP, and a creator of home Wi-Fi equipment looked at the issues and how they’re being addressed from their points of view. And, said panel moderator Jeff McInnis, president of Gentek Marketing, with improved standards such as DOCSIS 3.1 around the corner, for many customers that will mean symmetrical multi-gig fibre access and emerging technologies like Wi-Fi 6.
Panelists Erik Ackner, president, Mercku Europe; Emily Ferreira, vice-president operations at London, Ontario-based ISP Start.ca; and Michael Capotosto, professional musician and retired entrepreneurial CFO represented the various stakeholders.
Capotosto provided the customer’s voice, sharing his trials and frustrations. “We built our open concept post and beam home about 30 years ago with a very wired environment in mind,” he said. That meant a dozen wired phone handsets, a wired audio system, and wired cable TV. About thirteen years ago, Wi-Fi came on the scene, and, he noted, “The last decade has been filled with all sorts of Wi Fi challenges, both in terms of stability and speed. And our demand has increased exponentially, but the service hasn’t really grown along with it.”
Ferreira gets it. “We want to provide a service so reliable that customers don’t even think about us,” she said. “Prior to the pandemic, if you were an ISP, you believed you provided an essential service that customers put into the same circle of value as, say, hydro. And that belief has certainly been proven true with the pandemic. Customers now have higher expectations for their internet service, which means they expect it to be readily available whenever needed, just like the lights, so we understand how much they depend on reliable internet connection. And if customers do have an issue, we want to get them back up and running as quickly as possible.”
Added Ackner, “On our end, of course, we want to not only manage the expectations that are out there, but also meet them. So on the operator side the systems have to be reliable, good performance, ideally the best on the market providing wall-to-wall coverage. And ideally not costing a lot of money. But for the subscriber base, it has to be super simple to use.”
Moderator McInnis then asked panelists whether their preference was to provide customers with a single integrated gateway or separate modems and routers.
“Our preferred approach is for the customer to have a separate modem and router,” Ferreira said. She pointed out that every home is different – locations of walls, materials used to build, where the connection enters, and so forth. Providing two separate units gives customers more choice and allows Start.ca to troubleshoot their issues more effectively. Separate routers also offer more tech-savvy customer additional features.
“So, in comparison, will a combo unit work? Yes, but separating them into two units will perform much better, and in the end will give the customer a better result.” – Emily Ferreira, Start.ca
“So, in comparison, will a combo unit work? Yes, but separating them into two units will perform much better, and in the end will give the customer a better result,” she said.
“I can understand why the gateway seems to be a better solution,” Ackner said. “It might seem more cost effective. But if you look at the advantages of separating those two units, it clearly outcompetes.” He explained having a separate router removes interference from the modem that could impact Wi-Fi performance. In addition, it gives the customer more flexibility to place the router in the optimal spot for maximum coverage in the home. Finally, he noted, the speed of innovation in Wi-Fi vastly outstrips that of modem technology, so separate boxes means users can take advantage of Wi-Fi advances long before their modems need upgrading.
Capotosto’s provider uses gateway units, he said, and he has tried many approaches over the years to get acceptable coverage in his home, including disabling the Wi-Fi in the gateway and using an external Wi-Fi router, then adding Wi-Fi extenders to get coverage where the router couldn’t reach. Performance wasn’t reliable. Then he tried a powerline system but had to set up four different networks and keep switching connections as he moved around the house. Now he’s using a mesh system but even that isn’t up to the task any more.
The final question McInnis posed was around support. He asked the panel about tools or apps that can be used to support customers or allow customers to support themselves.
“I dread having to call Rogers because it means sometimes a half an hour wait to get somebody, and then I spend about an hour on the phone, going through all the things that I had gone through before I made my phone call, which is resetting everything,” Capotosto grumbled. “I may get the the answer in the end, but I will have wasted at least an hour.”
“I’ve got one of those nice little Wi Fi analyzer apps on my phone, which is fabulous,” he went on. “It shows me all my neighbors’ systems and everything. If only it would tell me what to do with that information to help me with my system, that would be brilliant.”
“We do have a customer facing app called StartCare, which provides an additional way for our text to help troubleshoot any issues that our customers might be having, as well. We partnered with a Canadian company called RouteThis few years back to bring that app to life,” added Ferreira. “We recently partnered with them again, to begin working on some new enhancements for the self-service.”
Ackner, too, is seeing a push towards easy management apps both for consumers and operators. His hope is it will improve customer experience while reducing the support burden on the operator.
Panelists agreed that smart home technologies, including increasingly necessary things like telehealth, are placing a huge burden on networks, and today’s Wi-Fi isn’t keeping up. The tech – Wi-Fi 6, for example – exists. The question is how to get it into the hands of those who need it.
But, said Ferreira, despite these challenges, ISPs should be proud of how they’ve handled the pandemic. “What this pandemic has brought light to is an industrialization of the internet,” she said. “And many say that no other utility, not hydro, not water, not transportation, could have handled such an increase in usage.”
