The number of people using cafes’ free internet is soaring, new figures show.
Berndt Querfeld, who manages some of Vienna’s most popular cafes such as Cafe Landtmann and Cafe Museum, said today (Fri) more than 5,700 people went online via wireless local area network (WLAN) connections in the last month. Speaking to Die Presse, the businessman stressed that this was an increase of 83 per cent.
Querfeld said guests to his cafes who went online did so for an average 37 minutes. Querfeld said the provision with free of charge internet should be a “standard service” at cafes in the Austrian capital.
Several other tradition-rich cafes but also international chains like McDonald’s and Starbucks offer free access to the internet to customers who own smartphones and notebooks in Vienna, but there is still no comprehensive WLAN service organised by the city hall. The city’s government coalition of Social Democrats (SPÖ) and Greens recently said it had no plans to establish such services in the foreseeable future.
The Viennese People’s Party (ÖVP) said public transport vehicles should be equipped with WLAN to improve the quality of services. Around 2.2 million people are travelling by tram, bus and underground in Vienna each day.
Salzburg officials decided to give residents and visitors the opportunity to go online with mobile devices at three popular places in the ancient city centre. The service is free of charge but users must register beforehand. Organisers argued they wanted to avoid various kinds of abuse of the service. They said people must not visit pornographic homepages or launch hacking attacks.
Europe-wide investigations show that Austrians take last place when it comes to how long they surf the web for each day. The study, which was presented last year, reveals that Austrians go online 14 hours a month – which is half the European average. People living in the Netherlands are at the top with 35.2 monthly internet hours, followed by Britons (33.9 hours) and Turks (31.8), according to Austrian magazine profil.
The websites of Google and Microsoft record the most visits in Europe. Social networking platform Facebook is in third place, according to the investigation. More than 2.6 million Austrians are registered at Facebook but it is unclear how many of them update their profiles on a regular basis. Energy drink producer Red Bull – which strongly engages in sports and event sponsoring – is the most popular Austrian company on Facebook.
Meanwhile, a rising number of Austrian winter sports resorts provide free WLAN services. Amade in Salzburg, the country’s biggest skiing region, is among regions which decided to set up free of charge internet connections, hoping that the step would boost their popularity.
Holiday industry experts are convinced that a WLAN service is turning into a crucial aspect of people’s vacation planning. They point out that summer and winter holiday benefit if tourists send short reports and images to their families and friends.
