April 19, 2004
Wi-Fi/Wireless Statistics
Legendary San Francisco newspaper man Herb Caen used to say his column was the perfect length for a trip to the bathroom. But today’s avant-garde skips newspapers and instead surfs BBC News and the New York Times from their “wash closets” courtesy of Wi-Fi.
The rush to Wi-Fi has caused the number of global hot spots to explode to 35,460. While the U.S. and U.K. lead in hot spots, France experienced the greatest growth since December 2003, vaulting from No. 8 to No. 3.
Biggest Wi-Fi trend: hot spots are becoming free. Hotels, in particular, are starting to realize that free Internet access is a major competitive weapon. That’s bad news for service providers who once saw a golden rainbow in Wi-Fi access.
In 2004, Wi-Fi providers will generate about $80 million worldwide, according to In-Stat/MDR, who recently lowered projections to reflect sluggish growth. But equipment makers see no let-up in Wi-Fi growth.
From 500 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.K. to the Cologne-Bonn airport, where T-Mobile began offering Wi-Fi service, Wi-Fi access is spreading fast. (Of course, there are many laggards, like the Las Vegas and Miami airports.) On the horizon is WiMax, a next-generation Wi-Fi that extends the range of hot spots up to 30 miles, while boosting transmission speed as much as seven times.
These developments will help propel the number of Wi-Fi users to 707 million by 2008, according to Pyramid Research, serviced by some 180,000 global hot spots. So while the use of Wi-Fi has gone down the crapper, the market is still not pooped out.
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