London loses top Wi-Fi status

London has lost its place as the city with the most Wi-Fi hotspots, according to a recent survey.

Wi-Fi mapping company JiWire found in January 2005 that London, New York and Paris were the top three cities. By the start of this year London had 1,627 hotspots placing it behind Seoul at 2,056 and Tokyo at 1,802.

The same survey found that the number of worldwide hotspots grew 87 per cent last year, from 53,779 in 93 countries to 100,355 in 115 countries.

"Crossing the 100,000 milestone is very exciting, and the technology is really just getting started," said Frank Hanzlik, managing director at the Wi-Fi Alliance.

"With Wi-Fi going into a wider array of devices, like portable gaming consoles, digital cameras and mobile phones, we expect public hotspots to continue to grow at a rapid rate."

The top three Wi-Fi countries in January 2005 were the US, the UK and Germany. A year later the top three countries are the US, the UK and South Korea.

"In the past year we've seen almost 100 per cent growth in the number of hotspots around the world," said Kevin McKenzie, chief executive at JiWire.

"With more than 115 countries having adopted Wi-Fi, we're witnessing a true global connectivity phenomenon."