When was the last time you traveled without a smartphone? Can you remember when you spent time at an airport without checking email, sending a text, posting to social media, or watching a video? I bet you’ll be hard pressed to name even one instance in the last five years.
What Forrester Research has called the “mobile mind shift” has fundamentally changed the way travelers engage at the airport and in-flight. This seismic “mind shift” leads us to expect immediate, fast connectivity and the ability to shape our own experiences through the insatiable consumption of instantly available content.
If software is “eating the world,” as technology entrepreneur Marc Andreessen so famously said, then content is eating the airport customer experience. Airports are increasingly engaging with their consumers through content and customized experiences, whether through apps, landing pages, digital billboards and even virtual assistants (anyone remember AVA?)
It may be hard to believe, but the content consumption culture at airports is still in its infancy. According to eMarketer, as of Q2 2015, the average U.S. adult spends an average of 1 hour, 16 minutes each day with video on digital devices. According to Cisco, in 2015 55 percent of mobile traffic was video, and they expect this to increase 13x by 2019 to 72 percent of total mobile traffic.
The rapid growth of data and content consumption among the growing majority of connected travelers demands a fresh approach to network development and deployment at airports. The airport network of the future must be a content delivery network. These content delivery networks will need to embrace a converged infrastructure to provide coverage to all devices, and offer network virtualization, allowing for resiliency and scalability in the face of hot new content trends that haven’t even been dreamed up yet.
The Content Consumption Tsunami
In addition to travelers’ insatiable appetites for curated content via apps and sharing through email, social media or messaging, we see four content trends making their way into the airport setting in the near term:
- Mobile Multimedia and OTT: Consumers of all ages today are embracing cord cutting and cord shaving when it comes to their favorite content. According to Nielsen, more than 40 percent of U.S. homes now have access to subscription-based video-on-demand, such as Netflix. With today’s more powerful mobile devices, travelers have the ability to emulate this at-home streaming while on-the-go. Over-the-top (OTT) video and on-demand streaming is convenient, cheap and is creeping into airport terminals coast-to-coast more each week.
- Gaming and eSports: Mobile gaming and massive multiplayer online games have been popular-- and have been taxing airport networks--.for years, but a new trend called eSports will kick consumption up another notch. As of 2015, there are 134 million eSports fans around the world, and soon they’ll be looking to watch via mobile to ensure that they’ll never miss a marquee match-up.
- Digital billboards and Advertising: Airports are embracing the power of direct engagement with their travelers through interactive billboards. These digital signs can present real time offers when travelers need them, driving needed non-aeronautical revenue. These powerful engagements require a dense and highly available network to support both consumer and operational needs, and rely heavily on data to properly target their audiences.
- Virtual Reality: This may sound far out, but virtual reality has arrived in homes and is being leveraged by such storied institutions as the Los Angeles Philharmonic with its new VAN Beethoven Oculus Rift mobile concert experience. Look for immersive mobile experiences to become more affordable in the near term, and therefore more prevalent in public spaces.
Content Demands Convergence
Content consumption is diversifying and intensifying, as are the services being supported and offered at airports today. Airports are increasingly interested in offering location-based services to their passengers, and mobile carriers are now integrating voice-over-WiFi (VoWiFi) calling into the delivery of services to consumers in high-traffic venues.
Airport will soon need to ensure that networks offer a confluence of technologies, and can support:
- Tiered, Technology Agnostic Services: The lines between licensed (cellular) and unlicensed (WiFi) technologies are blurring. Customers are toting both WiFi-only and cellular devices with them on their travels, and new technologies like Passpoint make it easier than ever to hand-off connections from one network to another to ensure optimal performance and content delivery.
To support the content tsunami, airport networks will need to be carrier grade, offering low drag and high performance to allow travelers to consume content as they run through terminals to their flights, or maintain a Skype call from the skycap to the ticketing desk. They will need to leverage all of the latest technologies--including WiFi, cellular and small cells-- to deliver comprehensive coverage to every radio on a device.
We also envision networks offering tiered service experiences, allowing travelers to select the speeds and bandwidth that suit their needs. Tiered networks deliver a bespoke connectivity experience, giving travelers the exact experience that they want, and helping to fund the network and ongoing upgrades to ensure that data demands are met.
- Think Mobile, Cache Local: Boingo is installing network technologies today to make it easier to control and tune the network for optimal performance via the Cloud. Efficient delivery of customized content will also be enabled by localized caching.
- Transcendent Quality experience: Through ongoing upgrades of intelligent WiFi networks complete with tiered offerings, airports can ensure that all passengers receive a quality experience. Delivering an outstanding experience in the future will not only mean offering a powerful network, but also choice, since mobile consumption behaviors are as unique as travelers themselves.
Content delivery networks are being implemented in some of the world’s largest and most innovative airports today. With content consumption set to continue nearly unstoppable growth, airports worldwide will need to embrace a converged infrastructure with more options for connected consumers to meet the rising data tide.
Marc Patterson, vice president of Products, Boingo Wireless
Marc Patterson is responsible for the overall specification, development and management of Boingo’s diverse mobility portfolio, including Boingo’s WiFi, small cell/Distributed Antenna System (DAS), S.M.A.R.T. networks and Boingo Broadband services, as well as the company’s web and mobile applications. Patterson brings more than 25 years of customer-focused, market-leading service development experience in wireless, mobility and security to Boingo. Patterson is the recipient of many wireless industry awards, and sits on the advisory board of Crowd Source Development. Patterson holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Drexel University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.
