Wi-Fi Gets Ever Cheaper as Europe Catches up: New Report

The average price for one-hour - now at EUR 5.74 (exclusive of taxes) - for example, a time-band now offered by almost half of all service providers in Europe, has fallen cumulatively by more than 11 percent since January of this year. However it is noticeable that in the other two most used time-bands - 24 hours offered by 56 percent of all service providers and 1 month (37 percent) - very little discernible change has occurred in average prices over the same period. This new report, offered by businessinfo.ws, found an interesting trend which is the shift to pre-paid methodologies, and reduced availability of subscription based offerings. More than 77 percent of all prices are based on pre-paid cards, vouchers, scratchcards and credit card payments. Subscriptions have fallen back as a payment method, which contrasts strongly with the US where marketing focuses extensively on securing 3, 6 or 12 month contracts. European service offerings are more concentrated on shorter-term usage. The report also finds that Hotspot deployment in Europe has increased significantly. The survey found the count is approaching 27,000 across the 28 countries included. More than 68 percent of all hotspots are located in France, Germany and the UK. 58 percent of all hotspots are controlled by 30 telco or mobile operators, with 92 competitor companies managing the remaining 42 percent.