Given the sheer amount of users tooling a smartphone or a tablet these days, the WiFi industry has experienced a major boom. That is one of the reasons why Time Warner Cable, one of the major MSOs, has been actively working on building Wi-Fi hotspots. Now, TWC has filed a patent regarding a WiFi roaming technology which will enable users to roam through WiFi access points.
The access points will be established at the users’ homes as well as throughout an area where TWC would have built WiFi hotspots. The patent says that TWC has developed the technology that would enable a user to use his WiFi-enabled device to make calls. The patent is titled ‘System and method for WiFi roaming.’
In the patent, TWC refers to a hypothetical device to makes its point clear. It is some kind of a mobile device that relies of WiFi connections. But to make calls and transmit other data, it hands over to the cellular network. The patent further reads, ‘One alternative to WiFi is a mobile device that bridges cellular service to WiFi devices that do not have a cellular radio.’
TWC is already investing handsomely in the realm of WiFi hotspots. It had unveiled plans of spending some $15 million to pitch up WiFi hotspots in California. But one of the major problems with the current WiFi being offered by TWC is that it requires the user to login his details and authenticate every time he enters a new TWC hotspot.
TWC apparently seems aware of the sheer pain that it is for the users and talks of doing away with it in the patent, ‘A session may be initiated on one network, such as a WiFi network or cellular network, handed off to another network, such as a cellular network or a WiFi network, and then returned to network on which the session was initiated.’
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