Last week we reported that public WiFi provider The Cloud had seen hotspot usage peak at four times higher than 2011 levels during the Christmas period. Now BT Wi-fi, which operates the UK’s largest network of hotspots, has released figures that show a similar increase.
New Year’s Eve 2012 saw the number of minutes’ usage increase by 317% year-on-year, while the quantity of data was up 260%, the number of unique users was up 88% and the number of separate sessions was up 138%.
WiFi minutes were up 289% year-on-year over the holiday period from 22nd December 2012 to 1st January 2013, while data usage was up 245%.
Andy Baker, CEO of BT Wi-fi, said: “With people off work we expected more mobile logons. This year’s jump in sessions shows users are more comfortable with their devices, which is ultimately driving demand for wi-fi.”