WiFi Temporal Coverage: Analysis of Socio-Economics Influences in Malaysia

Abstract

According to Internet Survey 2017, it was found that 89.4 percent of Internet users in Malaysia used a smartphone as a medium to access the internet. The proliferation of mobile devices and bandwidth hungry application, has resulted in mobile network provider (MNO) struggles to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for higher network capacity and wider network coverage. WiFi offloading seems the most viable solution due to the abundance and readily available infrastructure. Diverted traffic to the WiFi network may possibly reduce cellular network traffic, hence cellular network provider may be able to accommodate traffic growth at a lower cost. By analysing and understanding the user's offloading behaviour may provide guidance in price and cost restructuring strategies or in network planning. This paper investigates temporal coverage of mobile user's WiFi utilization and socio-economics influences through an extensive measurement study. The measurement study is carried out for 18 days and collected real data traces of user WiFi utilization on Android smartphone. The observation analysed user's WiFi temporal coverage where participants are categorized into two different socio economics group. The finding reveals low WiFi temporal coverage for both groups of smartphones users. Group 1 spends more time using WiFi compared to Group 2, while both groups shows higher temporal coverage during active hour. Findings of this research may potentially serve as insights to the relevant stakeholder or regulatory body, as well as a barometer to carry out enhancement measures or any potential joint venture between cellular network provider and ISP.