London leads the world on Wi-Fi

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 17 Mar 2008 at 12:08

Londoners are by far the biggest Wi-Fi consumers in the world, using nearly three times the number of sessions as next biggest Singapore, according to a recent report.

Nearly 30,000 Wi-Fi sessions were used in the city in the second half of 2007, a growth of over 150% on the previous year, according to the iPass Mobile Broadband Index.

Despite the popularity of Wi-Fi in the UK capital, the United States bought four times as many sessions as the UK, despite growth of only 60%, compared to the UK's 121%.

According to the report, the healthy growth in the UK can be attributed partly to airports and railway stations, as well as greater uptake of mobile broadband packages.

Airports accounted for nearly half of all business sessions, with Heathrow being the fourth busiest in the world, hosting over 41,000 sessions.

3G connections

3G connections made up the majority of mobile broadband connections, with average downloads increasing from over 150MB per user per month in the first quarter of 2007, to nearly 200MB in the fourth quarter.

The survey is conducted regularly by iPass, which provides Wi-Fi and mobile broadband connections to over 3,000 enterprise users.

"The results of the Mobile Broadband Index suggest that no single technology can meet all the needs of an enterprise workforce," says Joel Wachtler, vice-president of marketing and strategy at iPass.

"While 3G provides broadband download speeds in domestic metropolitan areas, users need Wi-Fi hotspots for fast bi-directional access everywhere else as well as to avoid high international 3G roaming charges."