A new survey has shown that mobile phones have overtaken Wi-Fi as the most popular way of using mobile broadband when on the move. The number of users using mobile phones has jumped to 47% from around 30% last year, compared with Wi-Fi which has 42% up from 40% for the previous year.
The results also show that O2 has the biggest markets share with 26%, both Vodafone and Orange have around 20% of the markets each, with 3 and T-Mobile having just 12% and 14%.
Although it is cheaper to send and receive data over Wi-Fi, it is thought that the new results are due to the fact that Wi-Fi hotspots are relatively small, and do not cover vast amounts of space or locations like the mobile phone networks can.
With many new mobile phones now offering integrated Wi-Fi access there is a growing trend to use both systems, with the user mainly using the phones mobile broadband to gain internet access, but switching to Wi-Fi where it is available.