Wi-Fi Does A Lot of the Data Work

Arbitron is an international media and marketing research firm serving the radio, television, cable and mobile industry, as well as advertising agencies and advertisers around the world. The company started in 1949 as the American Research Bureau, and in the mid-1960s, the company changed its name to Arbitron. This name change was made for the namesake of the Arbitron System, which was a centralized statistical computer with leased lines to viewers' homes to monitor their activity.

Arbitron recently conducted five smartphone panels, consisting of five separate groups of panelists with a group in the U.S., the UK, Germany, France and China. Ultimately, they determined that the panelists continue to use Wi-Fi for their data network. This once again makes Wi-Fi the work horse on the data network side. According to the report, the Arbitron smartphone panelists in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and China still consume nearly two-thirds of their mobile data through public and private Wi-Fi networks.

Of all the countries, 61 percent of the U.S. and 69 percent of the UK rely on Wi-Fi networks. This information is based on the percentage of Arbitron smartphone panelists. Overall, at 70 percent, China panelists consume the largest share on Wi-Fi networks.

You can see the breakdown in the following chart:

The report is also broken down into Apple iOS and Android users. Apple users significantly outweigh Android users, as you can see on this chart below:

Arbitron Mobile Oy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arbitron Inc., uses a proprietary, on-device software meter to provide marketers, the media, content providers, app developers and wireless access suppliers with information on how mobile consumers use apps, surf the Web, engage in social media, participate in e-commerce and employ their devices to communicate.

While mobile carriers are constantly pushing to the next faster level of service such as 4G and LTE, it would seem that even on smartphones and tablets, users prefer to use Wi-Fi for the greater part of their network of choice.