Skip to main content

Free Wi-Fi Access Growth Limits VAS Market

The wireless hotspot market continues to experience strong growth in deployed venues and usage, driven by broadband service providers embracing Wi-Fi both as a competitive differentiator and an enhancement to their core access services.

Despite the continued growth, the underlying hotspot business model has been in a continuous state of definition and development over the past decade, and remains a primary uncertainty in the future, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

"We are a decade into the introduction of hotspot services and the market is still working out the revenue model," says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst at In-Stat.

Initially the market was based on pay-as-you-go revenues, with providers hoping it would evolve into ongoing subscriptions and corporate accounts.

However, there has always been a free access component -- as branded hotspot venues like McDonald's and Starbucks have made free access pervasive -- it's now uncertain if this activity may lead to a customer resistance to pay for new value added services (VAS).

In-Stat's market study found the following:

- Their consumer survey identified security concerns as the top barrier to hotspot usage. Other top concerns are service availability and costs.

- Annual venue growth is expected to remain strong over the next several years, but will begin to slow in later forecast years.

- Europe will account for 40 percent of worldwide Wi-Fi venues in 2010.

- By 2012, handhelds are anticipated to account for half of hotspot connects.

- Europe and North America are the largest hotspot markets based on usage (annual connects).

- On a per location basis, airport hotspot usage dwarfs all other venues with several thousand connects per month.

Popular posts from this blog

Securing the Future of Cellular IoT Apps

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand. According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, they forecast a 90 percent growth in cellular IoT devices by 2028, with the global number reaching 6.5 billion. This exponential rise presents both exciting opportunities and significant challenges. While the growth of cellular IoT unlocks a vast potential for innovation in smart cities, industrial automation, and remote monitoring, it also requires device management and security advancements. Cellular IoT Market Development Juniper's research highlights the critical role of intelligent infrastructure management solutions. These platforms will empower the users to automate critical tasks such as device configuration, real-time security management, and optimized wireless connectivity. The surge in cellular data usage, projected to reach 46 petabytes by 2028 compared to 21 petabytes today, further underscores the need for automation. This is where federated learning i