Outdoor Wi-Fi Market Size

Outdoor Wi-Fi Market Analysis

The Outdoor Wi-Fi Market size is estimated at USD 7.12 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 11.20 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 9.49% during the forecast period (2024-2029).

Numerous venues, including metro stations, hotels, railroad stations, cafes, markets, airports, parks, institutions of higher learning, and other public spaces, now feature outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots. It encourages the internet's tremendous accessibility. The grounds for the market's expansion include rising social media usage, increasing internet penetration, and rising demand for smart devices in several nations.

• Governments are prioritizing outdoor Wi-Fi penetration across the globe to speed the broadband services uptake. According to Ericsson, the global number of fixed broadband connections is estimated to reach 1.5 billion by the end of 2026. It also predicted that by the end of 2026, North America would have 340 million 5G subscriptions. As a result, such expansion will likely influence the future outdoor Wi-Fi market's growth.
• Moreover, the government initiatives towards deploying Wi-Fi hotspots will significantly drive the studied market. For instance, in May last year, a senior telecom department of India official stated that state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam would transition 30,000 of its Wi-Fi hotspots to the PM-WANI framework in June last year. Railways include an ambitious plan for all its future hotspots to be under the framework. To promote broadband internet proliferation throughout the nation, the government approved the establishment of outdoor Wi-Fi networks and access points by local Kirana and neighborhood shops in December 2020. The PM-WANI, or outdoor Wi-Fi Access Network Interface, includes the potential to start a vast Wi-Fi revolution in the nation.
• Further, last year, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that 5.3 billion people, or 66% of the world's population, would use the internet. It marks a 24% growth from 2019, with an expected 1.1 billion people joining the internet throughout that time. Such a rise in internet penetration will create opportunities for local and international outdoor Wi-Fi vendors to introduce new products and increase the bandwidth to capture a significant market share.
• Throughout the pandemic, working from home became the new norm. Due to consumer pressure to work entirely from home, industries and the residential market have increased outdoor Wi-Fi use to meet this demand. Wi-Fi services rose to a greater extent, boosting social media use. For instance, The New York Times reports that group calls in Italy climbed tenfold while voice calls on Facebook's WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram platforms increased by 100% and 50%, respectively. Similarly, Google notes rising videoconferencing product usage and new YouTube usage trends but says peak traffic levels are still well within their capabilities. Many application providers, including Netflix, Akamai, and YouTube, have agreed to lower video streaming quality during peak hours in Europe due to increased demand. Some have also changed default global settings from high-definition to standard-definition.
• On the flip side, without VPNs, outdoor Wi-Fi is exposed to attacks like Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks, evil Twin attacks, malware injection, Wi-Fi snooping and sniffing, etc. Using VPN on free public hotspots will reduce all of these mentioned attacks risks. The encryption process will effectively shield all the user's data from snooping. While the hacker can see that the user is connected to the internet with the help of outdoor Wi-Fi, they cannot read the transmitted data details.