Beyond Hotspots:
iPass Broadens Its Mobility Usage Index

iPass' business is unifying mobility. And when unifying mobility across the world's largest multi-technology network, accurate insights into how and where mobile workers access wireless data services are essential. As additional access technologies such as 3G mobile data service become commonplace, iPass is compelled to learn how to best serve the needs of these users. That's why the company recently enhanced its twice-yearly Wi-Fi Hotspot Index to include enterprise 3G (and 2.5G) usage statistics. Along with this new capability comes a new name: the iPass Mobile Broadband Index.

Worldwide Wi-Fi Use Nearly Doubles
The latest report includes global Wi-Fi hotspot statistics for the second half of 2007 and full year data on 2.5G and 3G usage in the U,S.. Wi-Fi hotspots remain hot—with business use increasing 89 percent as compared to the second half of 2006. And Europe remains the hottest region of all for Wi-Fi growth. iPass grew its global broadband roaming network through 2007 to now include more than 90,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in over 70 countries including over 45,000 hotspots in Europe.

The latest Index proves that Europeans love their hotspots. In fact, Europe expanded its worldwide share of hotspot use to 40 percent, up from 31 percent in H2 2006. At this rate Europe would pass North America as the top Wi-Fi continent during 2008. UK users played a major role in this increase, boosting London's lead as the world capital for retail Wi-Fi in 2007, escalating usage by 156 percent over the same time period in the previous year. Other major contributors to European growth were France and Germany, where usage tripled form 2H06 to 2H07, as well as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium, where usage doubled.

Impressive broadband growth also extended to other key regions such as Latin America and Japan. Brazilians led the way in Latin America's 133 percent increase over H2 2006 as Brazil emerged as one of the top 10 countries using Wi-Fi today. According to IDC data, Japan's mobile workforce is increasing at the world's fastest rate—a trend that helped Tokyo become the third most popular wireless city, behind London and Singapore.

3G vs. Wi-Fi
The latest report also tracked the growth of 3G mobile broadband in the US—both in terms of the number of users and monthly usage per active user. The average user transferred 190 MB of data over mobile broadband in Q407, up 25% since Q107. Those who use 3G mobile broadband use it regularly, with 90% of users who have the service using it in any given month, which, if you exclude holidays and vacation, means it's the rare month when they don't use it. Lastly, a surprising large number of users had to avail themselves of slower 2.5G technology, probably needed when they went indoors or left major metropolitan areas.

While some industry experts portend an upcoming showdown between 3G and Wi-Fi, today's numbers suggest that business users don't consider these technologies an either-or decision. Both have a place as complementary technologies in the mobile worker's bag of tricks.

"The results of our Mobile Broadband Index suggest that no single technology can meet all the needs of an enterprise workforce, which is why iPass focuses on delivering value by unifying the management of these various access methods," stated Joel Wachtler, vice-president of marketing and strategy at iPass. "While 3G provides broadband download speeds in domestic metropolitan areas, users need Wi-Fi for fast bi-directional access outside of metropolitan areas or to avoid high international 3G roaming charges. We expect both Wi-Fi hotspots and 3G mobile broadband to continue to grow as enterprises give their mobile workers a complete mobility toolkit."

The iPass Mobile Broadband Index summarizes data collected by iPass across its base of over 1,000,000 quarterly users at more than 3,500 companies around the world. The full study is available at www.ipass.com/mobileindex.