(huh, it looks like I use my personal email address for this listerv, this was 
my original message)

Nik — 

It’s worth reaching out to these folks: 
<http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~ymostofi/HeadCountingWithWiFi 
<http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~ymostofi/HeadCountingWithWiFi>>. They may be able to 
give you the coarse estimator that you’re looking for even if they’ve patented 
their refined version.

Aside from that, This survey out of the UK in 2014. 
<http://purple.ai/latest-survey-people-use-wifi-public-places/ 
<http://purple.ai/latest-survey-people-use-wifi-public-places/>> did a survey 
which indicates ~75% of people are looking for & using wifi. (mileage may vary, 
no idea the size of n or how biased the survey pool may have been)

Additionally, the Wireless Broadband Association indicates that by 2017, 60% of 
carrier network traffic will be offloaded to Wi-Fi. And Pew Research last year 
indicates that 68% of adults have smartphones. 
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/2999631/phones/pew-survey-shows-68-percent-of-americans-now-own-a-smartphone.html
 
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/2999631/phones/pew-survey-shows-68-percent-of-americans-now-own-a-smartphone.html>>
 (and another study that I can’t find at the moment suggests that 90% of 
smartphones have Wifi which seems low to me, but we’re quibbling at this point).

So. 2/3 of the population have smartphones, 75% of those smartphone users are 
looking for free wifi, stringing together a few studies and looking at some 
tough commonality.

That gets you somewhat close for estimate purposes.

And then validate with a small tracking study and / or the UCSB folks in the 
first link.

-bw.



> On Dec 1, 2016, at 3:21 PM, Nik Honeysett <nhoneys...@bpoc.org 
> <mailto:nhoneys...@bpoc.org>> wrote:
> 
> I have a friend who runs a large, free public-access wifi network in a park. 
> The network requires no authentication. There is modest promotion of the 
> availability of free-wifi. He’s looking to estimate the total number of 
> visitors to the park from the number of unique clients he sees on his wifi 
> network. Despite the fact that a significant proportion of visitors have 
> their smartphone with them, only a certain percentage will appear on the 
> network due to a variety of factors including phone settings and a user 
> checking to see whether there’s wifi available.
> 
> What percentage of the total visitor number does the MCN brain trust think he 
> will see on his network? Or maybe put another way, what percentage of the 
> population looks for free wifi?
> 
> -nik
> 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bruce Wyman
bwy...@teufelkind.net


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