Iliad’s Free Mobile is shaking up France’s wireless market with a cheap mobile data service that uses millions of residential broadband Wi-Fi access points to offload 3G traffic. Why haven’t more carriers followed Iliad’s lead? Most carriers don’t have the Iliad’s ingrained advantage: it manages both its customers’ handsets and their Wi-Fi routers.
For another mobile operator to replicate such a feat it would not only need to strike partnerships with a broadband provider or hotspot aggregator, but it would also need to implement special handset clients or wait for new technologies like Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot to wend their way into the market.
Swedish startup Anyfi Networks, however, has developed a technology that bypasses those steps, potentially turning any access point into an extension of a customer’s home wireless LAN. Anyfi’s technology breaks the tie between the physical radio and the Wi-Fi network, connecting your device…