Devicescape Analytics: San Francisco Boasts Twice Amount of Available Wi-Fi of NYC

SAN BRUNO, Calif., Sept. 26, 2013— Pitting San Francisco against New York City, Devicescape today announced that locals and visitors to the City by the Bay are the true winners in finding and accessing Wi-Fi.

The new report, “San Francisco Trumps New York City in Wi-Fi,” focuses on the availability of amenity Wi-Fi, access points and networks that are intentionally shared by businesses and other organizations and that make up the largest offering of Wi-Fi in most cities. The report reveals that, on average, amenity Wi-Fi is twice as available in San Francisco, with 47% of businesses offering it as opposed to 23% in Manhattan. The report explores each of the models of shared Wi-Fi adopted by businesses in both cities and examines the varying levels of availability and accessibility. It also introduces the concept of a “Wi-Fi tease,” a case where a customer is confused by what appears to be a shared Wi-Fi network that is actually locked by the store owner.

Over the last six months, Devicescape compiled data from its Curator Service Platform, andCurator Client on smartphones along with local, on-the-ground measurements to reveal surprising statistics about the Wi-Fi landscapes in San Francisco and New York City. The data crowd-sourced from hundreds of millions of Wi-Fi connections across both cities explores the availability and accessibility of existing Wi-Fi, as well as the types of venues that offer it, how the public accesses it and more.

Highlights from the report include:

•          Twice as many businesses in San Francisco (47%) offer Wi-Fi compared with those in Manhattan (23%).
•          50% of chains and 45% of independent stores in San Francisco offer Wi-Fi, only 24% of chains and 22% of independents provide this amenity in NYC.
•          Cafes lead the types of venues that offer Wi-Fi, with 75% in San Francisco and 55% in NYC helping customers get connected.
•          NYC is the bigger Wi-Fi tease with 32% of venues offering private Wi-Fi that seems to be shared, but is not made available for the public.
•          54% of Wi-Fi shared in San Francisco does not require a password, while 41% of NYC’s shared Wi-Fi is password free.

“There are several regional and city-wide initiatives where San Francisco and New York City are making great strides in offering Wi-Fi to the public, including major tourist attractions and outdoor locations,” said David Nowicki, CMO of Devicescape. “But when it comes to business establishments recognizing the value of offering shared Wi-Fi to customers, San Francisco leads the way as the most Wi-Fi friendly city in this contest.”

Devicescape monitors more than 250 million global Wi-Fi hotspots in real-time to deliver the industry-leading Curator Service to mobile operators, including Leap Wireless (Cricket), U.S. Cellular, MetroPCS (T-Mobile), C Spire, Republic Wireless, Intel, and Microsoft (deployed by Verizon) among others. These deployments validate the huge opportunity held in automatically connecting smartphone users to curated amenity W-Fi. The Devicescape Curated Virtual Network, which consists of more than 16 million quality-controlled Wi-Fi hotspots, is the largest such network of Wi-Fi hotspots in the world, putting Devicescape in a unique position to deliver on the always best connected vision.

To download the full report, please visit: www.devicescape.com/ecosystem/wi-fi-analytics