Study: There's a Wi-Fi Hotspot For Every 150 People In the World

mpicpp sends a BBC report on a study that found there are, on average, 150 people per Wi-Fi hotspot, worldwide. In the U.K. alone, there is one hotspot for every 11 people. The study estimates there will be roughly 47.7 million hotspots worldwide by the end of the year. France has the most, followed by the U.S., the U.K., and China. Future growth is expected to be high: "Over the next four years, global hotspot numbers will grow to more than 340 million, the equivalent of one Wi-Fi hotspot for every 20 people on earth, the research finds. But this growth will not be evenly distributed. While in North America there will be one hotspot for every four people by 2018, in Africa it will be one for every 408. While Europe currently has the most dense wi-fi coverage, Asia will overtake it by 2018, according to the report."

Comments

Rule of Thumb

[PvtVoid]

Having traveled a lot in both rich and poor countries, I have come up with a general rule of thumb: the richer the country, the worse the Wifi access. It's always the poorest places that have completely open wifi absolutely everywhere.

WiFi in France

[manu0601]

All major France ISP provide a set-top box for their customers that does DSL modem-router, WiFi access point, TV and telephone. The WiFi access point also provides a hotspot service for the neighborhoods. I guess it explains the high numbers.

Re:WiFi in France

[YoopDaDum]

I can't speak about all ISPs as I don't know their offer, but I can speak for Free that I use and is very popular. After all, they came up with the first box and were also the first to include WiFi.

you have no control over that hotspot

Wrong, with Free you can decide to turn the hotspot off completely, turn in on but keep in private (for your own personal use only), or turn it on and also share it.
If the hotspot is off or private, you can't use other Free APs for your own use. If you share, you have free access to any Free hotspot. Up to you to decide.

the company uses your payed line to make more money

As explained above, it goes both way. I have an extra service too for free, which is why my WiFi is shared. And other users are always handled at a lower priority, so it's really transparent to me: they just get the unused capacity on my line.
The wifi access is not directly monetized, in that no-one pay for it. But it certainly make Free more attractive as an operator: their boxes are very popular, so you can get wifi coverage mostly everywhere in a city as long as you participate in the sharing.

you have no control to your router whatsoever

You have control over some basic configuration like the DHCP configuration, basic port forwarding and IPv6 enabling for example. But it's true that the router belongs to Free and you don't have direct access like you could have on an OpenWRT box. If you want this you can put your own router behind, it's a bit wastefull but I did it at one point to have more control over DNS for example.

you have to login to the company's website and see what limited options they provide you

Yes, all the configuration is done through Free web interface and pushed to the box from their network.

in France I had terrible problems with latencies and ofc with Youtube

There was quite a big fight between Free and Google a few months back. Same kind of conflict as between ISPs and big network users like Google, Netflix all over with ISPs trying to get money from them. It seems it's been resolved recently for Youtube, it was really awful at the worst of the clash but is now ok (I'm not a big user though). Still, I'm waiting to see how it'll go with Netflix now they're present in France and if that kind of problem will happen again. I'm not super optimistic, but I've heard there are discussions happening. As I understand it the ISPs would prefer to be able to offer Netflix on their boxes with a cut of the profit in exchange of good network quality, and the big discussion is on the percent of profit for this... We'll see.

Re:WiFi in France

[GuB-42]

Exactly, also you have no control over that hotspot, the company uses your payed line to make more money, as they sell this to others as a service and on top of everything, you have no control to your router whatsoever, you have to login to the company's website and see what limited options they provide you.
Also, in France I had terrible problems with latencies and ofc with Youtube

I think you are talking about Free.
The router is indeed completely controlled by the ISP and you use the company's website for settings. However, it not as bad as it may seem because :
- The public hotspot is independent from your home connection. The IP is different and you are not liable if something bad is done with it.
- You can disable the hotspot feature (but you lose access to others hotspots), you can also turn off WiFi completely.
- QoS is used to prioritize connections. The order is : VoIP, TV, Home internet, Public hotspot. As you see the public hotspot has the lowest priority so it is unlikely to impact you.
- If you want control over your internet connection you have "bridge mode", which I think is the best compromise between features and control. In this mode, you get a public, internet-facing IP so that you can connect your own router behind it and manage things like DHCP, DNS, NAT, port forwarding, etc... yourself and you still get to keep VoIP, TV and hotspot. You can't control QoS effectively though.
- It is possible to take full control of your line by replacing the ISP's router with your own modem. A bit tricky though, and frankly, not worth it for the vast majority of people.

You are right about Youtube and the global quality of their backbone though. It has improved a bit but Free still has one of the worst connectivity. If it is a problem to you, I recommend OVH (if it is available). As an ISP, it is geared mostly towards small businesses and has a very good peering.

Re:And they're basically useless except to the own

[AK Marc]

Without a definition of "hotspot" the story is useless. Is every unsecured home WiFi router counted? Secured store WiFi that you get a code for when you buy something? Unencrypted walled-garden sites? Pay-only unencrypted WiFi?

This seems more like a count of APs, not hotspots. They don't mention what you can do with them. If you have to pay to get to the Internet (other than cafes that you have to buy a coffee), then it isn't a "hotspot" it's paid wireless internet.

Re:And they're basically useless except to the own

[gl4ss]

it doesn't sound like a count of ap's too much though? or maybe it is..

without reading the article(duh, wha the fu you expect??) I reckon it's hotspots as in paid(one way or another, like being a customer of a certain operator) hotspots. in some places the isp's blanket neighbourhoods with these - as alternative to getting a dsl line.

why? because for those it's easy to get stats. that, and the french are kind of dicks so why wouldn't they setup for pay hotspots like mad to get off the free moochers...

besides, most smartphones sold nowadays are occasionally hotspots or at least capable of being one..

you know whats really funny though? the cheaper the hotel, the more likely it is that the wifi is free of charge. if the hotel is expensive then you have to get stupid fucking codes that you get for hourly or daily rates and the daily rates generally being more expensive than it costs to buy a data sim for a months access in said locale...

Data is incomplete

[captainpanic]

I tested the data for my own country (Netherlands). That website claims we only have 10 hotspots in trains, while all our intercity trains now have wifi. Also, municipalities should be having only 25 hotspots, while entire city centers have free public wifi now. It's a load of rubbish, this website.

I understand it is difficult to get the data... but if you equate the lack of data with "zero", then you make a mistake.

Re:Flag

[Lehk228]

moderation does not provide enough social justice.

check your privilege and prepare to be culturally enriched.