Until recently, most technologists and mobile
industry executives viewed Wi-Fi as the “poor cousin” to licensed mobile
communications. And they certainly never viewed any role for Wi-Fi in mobile
networks or their business. The explosion of mobile data traffic has changed
all of that. Most mobile operators now realize that offloading data traffic to
Wi-Fi can, and must, play a significant role in helping them avoid clogged networks
and unhappy customers. In addition, service providers (SPs) are struggling to
understand new business models for making money from Wi-Fi.
In all of this strategizing about Wi-Fi,
there is precious little research about how end users are
actually using Wi-Fi, how they want to employ it in the future, and, more
specifically, about what drives a user to connect his or her device to the
Internet with Wi-Fi rather than “mobile.”
To
learn more, the Cisco® Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG)
conducted a survey of 1,079 U.S. mobile users to understand their needs and
behaviors, current and future mobile usage, and level of interest in Wi-Fi and
new forms of monetization. The study revealed some interesting findings,
including people’s preference to connect their mobile devices using Wi-Fi, the
predominance of mobile device usage in the home, and the fact that one-third of
mobile users use a public hotspot at least weekly to connect their mobile
devices to the Internet. The research findings are important because they allow
SPs to understand the size of the opportunity, develop strategies for success,
and differentiate their Wi-Fi offerings and initiatives to become more
competitive.
Download the paper
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