US Consumers Still Cold On Hot Spots

Public Hot Spots: Moving Beyond Road Warriors examines the current state and future development of the WLAN market. It found that although awareness of hot spot services has increased significantly since 2001, subscriber numbers remain very low. Even today, almost two-thirds of US internet subscribers either have never heard of hot spots or remain unfamiliar with them.

“The hot-spot market is likely to suffer from a prolonged infancy, despite the rosy forecasts proffered by industry pundits,” said Yuanzhe Cai, research analyst with Parks Associates. “Our latest consumer research suggests that approximately three percent of internet users have used public hot spot services and only five percent of these users converted into subscribers.”

Doubt is cast on recent forecasts which claim that approximately five million consumers in North America will have used Wi-fi hot spot services by the end of 2003.

“That number is simply unrealistic,” Cai said. “The most optimistic 2003 estimate of hot spot users in the United States should not exceed 2.5 million.”

Gartner is more confident on growth and estimates that there will be over 31 million WLAN users in North America by 2007 (see Over 31m US Users To Adopt Wireless Networks By 2007, Says Gartner).