Stoke (News - Alert) has initiated multiple commercial service trials aimed at finding revenue-supporting ways of using Wi-Fi with the help of its new Wi-Fi eXchange gateway. This will benefit telecommunication operators.

Edgar Figueroa (News - Alert), president and CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance said, “Operators are exploring ways to enhance their return on investment by incorporating secure and seamless Wi-Fi into well-crafted business strategies. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Passpoint addresses numerous opportunities to deliver a seamless and secure Wi-Fi experience, and our members continue to build on that foundation. “

Service providers are joining hands with companies like Stoke to find the advantages of using Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi Alliance (News - Alert) providers and hardware manufacturers develop Wi-Fi strategies, besides providing a forum for operators. It also provides equipment to develop standards and programs to drive the adoption of Wi-Fi.

Depending on objectives the strategies followed by broadband carriers tend to vary. For example operators were forced to delay implementation or make non-optimum solutions so that the carrier-grade Wi-Fi technology solutions become applicable in a majority of cases.

Stoke‘s Wi-Fi eXchange commercial availability is welcome among wholesale Wi-Fi, fixed line and cellular operators who are desirous to conduct trials and advance further. Wi-Fi eXchange’s feature set includes multi-vendor core, radio equipment interoperability, broad network topology support, and carrier-grade performance.

John Carvalho, VP Wireless Architecture at Stoke said, “Stoke‘s benefit to operators in these use cases is in delivering flexibility and efficiency in operations for both access and core networks. For example, operators can terminate both Layer 2 and Layer 3 connected Wi-Fi access networks, as well as access points from different manufacturers, on Wi-Fi eXchange where they needed several gateways before.“

Wi-Fi eXchange lets operators apply GGSN-based business processes to Wi-Fi subscriber sessions while directing other processes to the Internet. Operators can use Wi-Fi to recapture roaming revenues lost to ISPs with no effect to the mobile core infrastructure.

Recently, Stoke experts joined forces with communications specialists at the University of Surrey located in the UK to investigate the signaling challenges created by the growth of mobile phone use.