Canadians and their Wi-Fi

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 21:31:09 -0500
From: David Akin <david () davidakin com>
Subject: Canadians and their Wi-Fi
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

Hey Dave --

We never wrote a story up about this but some listers -- I'm betting DeWayne
Hendricks, certainly -- might find these survey results interesting:

One in ten Canadians have used a wi-fi hotspot, according to a study
published this month by the Ottawa office of Decima Research, a polling and
market research firm.
And those that use hotspots would rather pay by the hour than by the day.
In quizzing actual and potential users of wi-fi hotspots, Decima found that
Canadians would rather pay-as-they-surfed, buying time on a wireless LAN in
hour-long or two-hour-long chunks. Buying a 24-period of time wasn't so
popular.
Moreover, those polled said they would pay between $4 and $10 for that one
or two-hour chunk of time.
[I'm afraid I cannot provide an URL of this report at Decima's site. Decima
e-mailed me a PDF copy of the report. Contact info for Decima is at
http://www.decima.ca and these findings are from the firm's Report on
Wireless of Dec. 3.]
Interestingly, the survey found support for all-you-can-eat monthly pricing
plans with an arbitrary price point of $25. The survey said students and
Albertans (?!?) were the most enthusiastic about the monthly flat fee idea.

Folks in Ontario and B.C. love being wireless the most (12 per cent said
they have used a hotspot) while those in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are
little behind the curve (6 per cent of those living in Canada's flatlands
say they've surfed from a hotspot.) Younger Canadians are more likely than
older ones to have used wi-fi technology. Decima also finds that Canadians
use hotspots for fun as much as they do for business.

[I've posted this as well at:
http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2003/12/22/10468.html]

Anyone ever heard of any similar studies for the U.S market?

--
David Akin
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