Arun Sarin joins board of wifi player DeviceScape

The former CEO of Vodafone, Arun Sarin, has joined the board of a wifi offload specialist that claims to be the curator of the world’s largest wifi network. Devicescape offers a rolling curator service that verifies the quality of more than 12 million public and amenity (instore, shopping mall, etc) wifi hotpsots based on feedback from user devices.

The guiding principle is that cellular operators will be able to guarantee service quality to users as they offload to wifi networks.

“Devicescape enables operators to provide their customers with an enhanced mobile experience and to substantially lower costs,” said Sarin, who is also on the board of Cisco. “As public Wi-Fi becomes an increasingly important part of carriers’ network strategies, Devicescape is uniquely positioned for significant growth.”

In the Telecoms.com Intelligence 2013 Industry Survey, wifi was rated as one of the most important technologies for cellular operators over the next two years. One of the most significant challenges operators face is how to retain a degree of control over the subscriber when they are offloaded to wifi, as well as maintaining service availability where necessary.

Devicescape will also look to monetize its relationships with amenity wifi providers such as shopping malls and sports stadia. Telecoms.com understands that the firm will launch a proximity marketing solution targeted at this market later this week.