世論 What Japan Thinks

If you want to see people using public WiFi in central Osaka, don’t head towards the nearest Starbucks, but instead choose the Pokemon Center where you’ll see big groups of kids huddled around the gaming access point there. This recent survey from Marsh and reported on by japan.internet.com into public wireless LAN (WiFi) suggests that games machines are beating PDAs at least.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 8th of June 2008 300 members of the Marsh internet monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample was male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ve posted this before, but I’ll post again; if you want to find a public wireless access point in Japan, this site in English aids your search. However, the one at Yodobashi Camera was WAP-protected when I tried, although their electricity sockets do work. The iPhone is going to suffer in Japan from this lack of availability.

Thanks to running NetStumbler on my way home, although I pass through about 22 railway stations, including changing trains at the largest station in Osaka, the only open WiFi I pick up are misconfigured domestic routers. Many of the stations seem to have locked-up tight corporate WiFi points only.

Research results

From the original sample, just 54.0% were aware of public wireless LAN. I’m not sure if that means that 54.0% were aware of the availability or aware of the concept. In addition, 38.0% of the original sample had used the internet when outside, including over the mobile network. These 114 people were then asked the following.

Q1: When outside, what internet services do you access? (Sample size=114, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
View web site	97	85.1%
Check mail	92	80.7%
Play online game	10	8.8%
Chat	9	7.9%
Other	7	6.1%

Q2: Have you ever used a public wireless LAN? (Sample size=114)

Yes (to SQ)	35.1%
No	64.9%

Q2SQ: What device have you used to connect to a public wireless LAN? (Sample size=40)

Computer with built-in WiFi	52.5%
Computer with external WiFi card, etc	25.0%
PDA	2.5%
Nintendo DS	5.0%
PSP	7.5%
iPod touch	2.5%
W-ZERO3	2.5%
Other	2.5%

The W-ZERO3 is a Windows Mobile-based handheld computer and mobile phone. However, this question does not clearly state if people answered with their most common way of connecting or their most recent, etc.

When asked how often they used public wireless, 7 out of the 40 said once a week or so, 8 once every two weeks, and 6 about once a month. How exactly the remaining were divided between less than once a month versus more than once a week (which was perhaps subdivided into at least two to four times a week and almost every day) is not reported, another problem with the reporting.