Going mobile

Desktops take a back seat

This article was published on 06.23.11

A recent study by Meraki, a company specializing in “cloud networking,” shows some interesting trends in how Americans consume data through Wi-Fi connections. Through an anonymous survey of more than 100,000 Wi-Fi devices (including computers, cell phones and mobile gadgets like iPads), the company compared data from one month in 2010 and the same month in 2011 to see just how people were plugging in. Here are some of those findings:

• Between 2010 and 2011, mobile devices surpassed desktops in Wi-Fi usage.

• The iPhone is the most popular Wi-Fi device.

• Android is growing in popularity—going from 1 percent to 11 percent of Wi-Fi devices from 2010 to 2011.

• The average iPad uses more than 400 percent more Wi-Fi data than the average iPod, iPhone or Android.