Nokia, wanting to study consumer Wi-Fi use, offers free hotspots

Nokia is sponsoring 26 free Wi-Fi hotspots around London, as a way to promote its new Lumia Windows Phone device — which can connect with just one touch — and to learn more about how users rely on Wi-Fi.

The hotspots will work with any Wi-Fi­–enabled smartphone, regardless of carrier, and be avilable through the year's end.

"We want to observe user patterns, how long people use it and where, but no personal data will be accessed," said Simon Alberga, chairman of Spectrum Interactive, the Wi-Fi provider Nokia has paired with, in a post on the Nokia blog,

The trial will also acquaint users with Nokia Maps app and help inform Nokia's efforts to connect the next 1 billion people to the Internet for the first time and ideally empower them with efficient Web access and "great technology."

Alberga described Wi-Fi use as "evolving."

Indeed, in the U.S., with carriers increasingly imposing data caps, Wi-Fi is being leaned on by both parties — consumers who don't want to rack-up fees and carriers needing to offload traffic during peak hours (CP: Wi-Fi reliance increasing with growing mobile broadband adoption).

A June Wi-Fi study from Devicescape found that 64% of survey respondents now use Wi-Fi one or more times a day outside the home and expect WiFi to be included in their data plans, no longer considering it a "nice to have" but a must. As such, service providers, said Devicscape, should take it seriously.

By offering Wi-Fi, states the report, "service providers can slash the costs of carrying data traffic by a significant percentage, reduce capex and opex necessary to manage data-intensive applications, and offer an improved experience to the smartphone user."

Those that fail to, it added, "will likely reap the consequences in lost customers and revenue."

Alberga said Spectrum Interactive has found that while consumers are willing to pay for Wi-Fi in airports and hotels, "it has to be free on the streets, and Nokia has helped us achieve this."