iPhone dominates Boingo airport access study
Posted Jun 23rd 2009 1:15AM by Christina Warren
It's hard to believe that we're approaching the two-year anniversary of the original iPhone. I don't think it is hyperbole to say that the iPhone has completely transformed the mobile computing space. This is especially clear when evaluating mobile Wi-Fi usage data.Today, Boingo Wireless released a data snapshot of mobile device access on its airport network of Wi-Fi hotspots. According to Boingo, airports are the number one venue for Wi-Fi access worldwide, so they make for a good data point when evaluating Wi-Fi usage.
For the past 24-months, Boingo has tracked its airport Wi-Fi data and the increase in mobile device uptake is astonishing. It's also driven almost entirely by the iPhone and the iPod touch.
Since May 2007, mobile device usage has gone from accounting for 0.1% of Boingo's airport Wi-Fi connections to 26.1%. In two years, the smartphone has gone from a non-entity to accounting for 1/4 of all of Boingo's connections.
Boingo has also tracked what type of devices associate with Boingo operated airport Wi-Fi hotspots. In 2007, the first year the iPhone was available, the iPhone only accounted for 1% of all mobile devices. Windows CE (Windows Mobile), was the leader in 2007, with 66% of mobile device connections. In 2008, the iPhone accounted for 51.7% of all mobile devices, with the iPod touch coming in second with 42.4%. For the first five months of 2009, the iPhone has taken an astounding 89.2% of all mobile devices accessing Boingo's airport hotspots. The iPod touch has dipped to 4.7%. I talked to Jeremy Pepper from Boingo PR and he said that they think the drop in the price of the iPhone is the reason iPod touch access figures have dipped, with the iPhone taking its place.
Although these figures are only from one Wi-Fi access source, the number of users that access Wi-Fi at the airport provides what I consider a good sample for data collection. In two years, not only has the mobile access space increased 261x, the iPhone OS accounts for nearly 94% of all mobile connections.
No wonder every other phone manufacturer is desperately trying to play catch-up!
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
G said 8:55AM on 6-23-2009
Boingo are awful. They charged me double what they were supposed to and never refunded it. I cancelled my account and explained why and they said to resolve this, I should phone someone in America. I'm in the UK, I don't want to call international phone rates to get 4 pounds back. They refused to deal with me by email.
Other than that, it's quite a good service.
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Christina Warren said 8:56AM on 6-23-2009
Contact them via twitter (www.twitter.com/boingo).
Dmitry said 9:05AM on 6-23-2009
I'd say there's one more contributing factor: iPhone is on AT&T network, which sucks donkey balls, so you just _have_ to use wifi if you want to have a more or less reliable network connection. Other smartphones from other networks, like Verizon, work just fine on the cell network.
I've had Verizon broadband card for many years now, and before iPhone I was also using Motorola Razr v3 on Verizon's network, with EvDO support, and it was working 10 times faster _5 years ago_ than AT&T's 3G works now.
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chus3r said 9:24AM on 6-23-2009
I'd really like to see the details of this report.
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BeyondtheTech said 9:49AM on 6-23-2009
Interesting how they only use percentages. Imagine it turns out they only had 63 people connect to their pay-for hotspots... Free Wi-Fi FTW!
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CHRiS said 10:44AM on 6-23-2009
This isn't exactly that surprising, most cell phone browsers won't allow you the ability to log-in, let alone pay for a browsing session, the iphone and now newer phones do. So most folks are using a laptop to access boingo. And if you so happen to have a cell phone with a real browser like the iphone has had for the last 2 years+ you would show up on the top of this list as well. I'd say it's more than likely the iphone users are at the top because they can, and others can not. Once the others can (e.g. have better web browsers allowing their users the same ability to log-in), it will probably equal out.
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owenmhv said 10:57AM on 6-23-2009
You have to include the AT&T lack of coverage factor. If my AT&T connection is strong, and 3G available, why would I need to connect to a public wifi network. Also, blackberry are more business tools, they would not risk sending there data over an airport wifi, and if on verizon or sprint, they probably have adequate connection speed.
If anything these shows a lack of coverage on AT&T's part.
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alansky said 12:29PM on 6-23-2009
I must agree: AT&T is the mobile service provider from Hell as far as the iPhone is concerned. Can they really be so arrogant (and/or stupid) that they don't even care what their subscribers think of them? Give me an iPhone that works on another network and I'll show you a mass exodus from AT&T that will make your head spin.
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bill said 1:28PM on 6-23-2009
Is it also possible that people with iPhones are more likely to surf on their phones while a Crackberry user is more likely to be a full on Road Warrior that has a laptop to work on?
Combine that with previous comments that ATT 3G sucks, so one is likely to purchase WiFi and we are getting somewhere...
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Tad said 9:47PM on 7-28-2009
Boingo was also offering free wifi for iPhones, which would create an artificial disparity.
Not to mention that there was a hack going around about how to spoof Boingo into thinking your laptop was an iPhone and thus get that free wifi.
Their numbers are skewed to the point of being irrelevant.
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Monkey_bouy said 7:45AM on 9-02-2009
Is the data not a little biased toward iphone in the first place? Or perhaps the service provider? I have a contract phone with unlimited data usage so I never use Wi-Fi as I can connect through my service provider, email, internet, BBC iplayer etc are all covered (using a Nokia N97).
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