Posted: 21st Nov, 2011 By: MarkJ

The Cloud, a
BSkyB ( Sky Broadband ) owned and public UK Wi-Fi Hotspot (public wireless internet access) operator, has claimed in a new survey of over 2,000 consumers and 200 small business owners that
59% of smaller firms fail to offer Wi-Fi and 44% have no plans to do so (including café owners, hoteliers and hairdressers), which is despite demand from customers.
Vince Russell, Managing Director at The Cloud, said:
"Every company has to focus obsessively on catering to customers’ demands, but this is especially true of small businesses which are under pressure as never before. In recent years the public has come to expect that they’ll be able to get fast, reliable WiFi access wherever they are, and our research suggests that many smaller businesses are missing out on custom and revenue because they aren’t delivering what these customers expect."
Survey Highlights
* 1 in 10 consumers – the equivalent of 4.5m people – choose big-brand coffee shops over independent cafes because the former offer WiFi (rising to almost one in five consumers (19%) in London).
* Over 1 in 5 consumers (21%) expect WiFi to be freely available in any coffee shop they visit.
* Nearly one in three people polled (30%) said they think smaller or independent coffee shops are missing out on customers by not offering WiFi.
* Almost one in five small business owners (18%) admitted they have given out their personal WiFi details in the past so that customers can access the internet on their premises. This could potentially put internet security at risk as well as straining personal connections that have never been designed for public use.
* Of the 45% of small business owners who said they had been asked for WiFi on their premises, well over half (61%) said they had been asked "often or very often".
Naturally The Cloud's release is designed to coincide with the launch of their new '
Cloud In A Box' product, which enables small businesses to offer free WiFi to their customers for just £99, plus a monthly fee of £5.49, and without having to worry about the technical and legal aspects of wireless networking. Sounds like a router, except for the legal part of course.