The new survey, Wi-Fi Europe, covers 139 service providers in 28 countries, and includes more than 350 products.
The report findings suggest that although prices have remained stable in what is increasingly a mature market, a number of new time bands have been introduced. 24-hour pricing remains the most widely used time band (21%) across Europe and is offered by half of all providers.
Another key development identified in the BroadGroup survey is that although the public Wi-Fi market in Europe is still predominately prepaid, the incidence of one-month subscription based prices is on the increase, and now represents just under 20 percent of market offerings. Purchase of Wi-Fi services via SMS has also increased with blocks of 5 minutes being the smallest unit.
Price differences within a time band can vary significantly for example for the 15-minute product the difference is 8 fold, and 8.5 for the 1-hour product.
"We have seen more innovation occurring in Wi-Fi product marketing," commented Margrit Sessions, managing director at BroadGroup Tariff Services. "Operators are using bundling more effectively, and have extended the validity period from 1-time log-in to multiple log-ins over different periods ranging from 24 hours up to 1 year."
Conducted each year, the BroadGroup Wi-Fi survey tracks all price schemes offered by service providers in the countries covered and presents tariffs in a common format accompanied by an analytical report.