The Impact of Internet Access Account Categories on Users and Traffic in a Commercial Nationwide Wi-Fi Hotspot Network

Commercial Wi-Fi hotspot operators often categorize their customers depending on price, time and traffic limits. This paper presents the first comparison of user and traffic characteristics of three different categories of commercial Wi-Fi hotspot users. We examine a five month long trace of user activity and traffic collected by a wireless hotspot service provider operating hotspots in public and private locations all over Australia. We categorize users based on the duration of their purchased account time limit and compare traffic generated, user behavior, session activity and account usage. Key user and traffic statistics for each category are presented for reference.