News & Analysis
Asia sees tenfold growth in Wi-Fi hotspots in '03
2/20/2004 10:20 AM EST
BWCS analyst Peter Bell said the region's Wi-Fi markets have seen some dramatic developments over the past year. In total, hotspots in Asia grew from 1,953 in 2002 to 21,308 in 2003, he said.
"While operators in North America and Western Europe made most of the early running in the public access hotspot sector, 2003 has undoubtedly been the year that the Asian Wi-Fi sector came into its own," he said.
The Asia-Pacific hotspot provider with the most ambitious plans has been Korea Telecom, which has now installed well over 10,000 public access hotspots in its home market, accounting for more than one third of all hotspots worldwide. KT is now able to claim more than 300,000 Wi-Fi subscribers, two-thirds of which also subscribe to a home DSL service.
"Unlike many other wireless ISPs, KT has been happy to roll out Wi-Fi access points in consumer-oriented locations rather than focusing mainly on the business sector. It has been aided by the huge popularity of fixed broadband technologies in Korea," Bell said.
KT was also involved in another of Asia's main Wi-Fi developments of 2003, the formation of the Wireless Broadband Alliance. The WBA -- founded by KT, Telstra, Maxis, StarHub and China Netcom last March -- came together in order to promote Wi-Fi services via joint marketing and roaming initiatives and to establish recognized standards of service. By the end of the year the member companies were operating more than 13,000 hotspots between them, with the vast majority of these in Asia.
Meanwhile, Australia had 115 hotspots by the end of 2002, growing to 300 by the end of 2003. China had 170 hotspots by the end of 2002, growing to 520 by the end of 2003, according to the firm.
Hong Kong had 100 hotspots by the end of 2002, growing to 311 by 2003. India went from 7 in 2002 to 54 in 2003, while Japan went from 751 in 2002 to 1,434 in 2003, according to the firm.
Singapore had 141 hotspot in 2002 and 261 in 2003, while South Korea went from 650 in 2002 to 18,010 in 2003. The rest of Asia went from 19 in 2002, to 418 in 2003.
