PCs dominate Wi-Fi sessions

Smartphones might be grabbing all the headlines, but research by software firm Wefi shows that notebooks and laptop PCs are still user’s first choice to access Wi-Fi connections.
 
The firm discovered laptop and notebook users typically consume more data over Wi-Fi connections than subscribers using Symbian and Android smartphones, because dedicated PCs are normally connected more often and for longer.
 
Indeed, 70% of Symbian smartphone users surveyed consumer less than 100MB of data via Wi-Fi per month, the firm notes.
 
Android is more Wi-Fi friendly, it states, with 50% of users regularly downloading more than 100MB using the technology.
 
A worrying statistic for cellular operators is that smartphone owners tend to use 3G connections less than Wi-Fi. Wefi’s research found the majority of Symbian users (75%) access under 10MB of data per month over 3G networks, while Android users are again more active, with 40% of respondents using between 10MB and 99MB of data on cellular connections.
 
However, there is a difference between active data sessions and passive. Wefi notes that laptops and notebooks may simply register higher figures because they are used most often in homes, where they may be left connected to the network even when users aren’t surfing.
 
“While the durations of Wi-Fi sessions on Windows-based mobile platforms (Laptop/Netbook) are approximately linearly spread over the different time ranges, we see that on the mobile smartphone platforms a higher percentage of sessions last less than five minutes,” the firm notes.