Pew: One-Third of Internet Users Also Use Wireless

March 1, 2007

This article is included in these additional categories:

Digital

Some 34% of internet users have logged onto the internet using a wireless connection around the house, at their workplace, or elsewhere, using a laptop, a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA), or cell phone, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Some 27% of internet users have logged on wirelessly from a place other than home or work; 19 percent have wireless networks in their homes; and 13 percent have connected to the internet wirelessly via PDAs that connect to the internet wirelessly, according to a research memo (pdf) from Pew.
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Among the 34 percent of internet users who have gone online wirelessly, 72 percent check email on the typical day, compared with 63 percent of home broadband users and 54 percent of all internet users; 46 percent get news online on the typical day, compared with 38 percent of home broadband users and 31 percent of all internet users.

Some 39 percent of internet users have laptop computers; of these laptop users, 80 percent say their laptops can connect to the internet on a wireless network, and among these laptop users 88 percent have at one time logged on using a home wireless network; 57 percent have used a wireless network someplace other than home or work to connect to the internet; 36 percent have logged using a wireless network at work.

And 25 percent of internet users say they have a cell phone that connects to the internet with a wireless connection; among these people, half (54 percent) have used it to get on the internet either at home, work, or someplace other than home or work: 47 percent someplace other than home or work; 28 percent at work; 27 percent at home.

One in eight (13 percent) internet users have a PDA that can connect to the internet using a wireless network; of these, most (82 percent) have used it to connect at home, work, or someplace else: 56 percent have used it to access the internet or email away from home or work; 49 percent, at home; 38 percent, at work.

Users of wireless tend to be younger than internet users in general (see table, below, for details).

Pew’s study of wireless connectivity is from a December 2006 survey that frames wireless access in terms of devices (laptop, cell phone, wireless-enabled PDA) and place (the home, workplace, or someplace else).