Public Wi-Fi Hotspots to Double; 75% Used Hotspots
The
popularity of public Wi-Fi hotspots continues to grow quickly, and the
number of worldwide deployments, including both stand alone sites and muni-wireless
deployments, will double over the next five years, according to
In-Stat.
From 2005 to 2006, there has been significant public hotspot usage uptake within In-Stat’s Technology Adoption Panel (TAP) when surveyed on current and future use of Wi-Fi hotspots.
In 2006 75.3% of respondents said they had used a wireless hotspot, up from 47.5% in 2005.
Related:
Wi-Fi chipset sales are poised to exceed 200 million units in 2006, according to new data released by In-Stat and the Wi-Fi Alliance, thanks in part to sales of some of the hottest holiday gifts for 2006. The prevalence of Wi-Fi technology in everything from notebook computers to cell phones to gaming devices has propelled worldwide sales forward again this year. Continued proliferation into phones and consumer electronics is expected to lead Wi-Fi unit sales growth to the half-billion mark by 2009.
A new service, HotSpot@Home, allows a subscriber to place calls from a mobile phone using cellular and Wi-Fi networks, whether a home wireless network or a hot spot operated by T-Mobile.
Source: Recent In-Stat research, In-Dustry Update: Internet Access on the Go: Wi-Fi Hotspots 2006, which ncludes the results of an end-user survey, along with forecasts for deployments.
