On Practical Aspects of Mobile Data Offloading to Wi-Fi Networks

Data traffic over cellular networks is exhibiting an ongoing exponential growth, increasing by an order of magnitude every year and has already surpassed voice traffic. This increase in data traffic demand has led to a need for solutions to enhance capacity provision, whereby traffic offloading to Wi-Fi is one means that can enhance realised capacity. Though offloading to Wi-Fi networks has matured over the years, a number of challenges are still being faced by operators to its realization. In this article, we carry out a survey of the practical challenges faced by operators in data traffic offloading to Wi-Fi networks. We also provide recommendations to successfully address these challenges. Index Terms – mobile data offloading, Wi-Fi offloading, DAS, backhaul, 802.11u