Gold medal for WiFi: Oi-Fon network surges in Brazil

Two weeks ago, we posted about staying connected in Rio with the Oi-Fon WiFi network – and it looks like many of you did just that! Brazil saw a huge influx in tourists this summer, largely thanks to the biggest sporting event of the year – and we thought we’d take a look at our own numbers to see just how many people logged on to the network during this time. Well, the final count is in and the results show network growth rates of exponential proportions!

For starters, it seems that many tourists in Brazil were able to enjoy the Oi-Fon service, with the number of foreign users to the network increasing by 400%. On top of the normal amount of daily connections, these visitors generated over 50,000 new connections per day, bringing the total to more than 5 million connections during the first few weeks of August.

New users and new connections weren’t the only metrics to skyrocket – data traffic also showed a huge boost when compared to this same timeframe in 2015. We found that videos, photos, and social media interactions flooded the internet on a daily basis from Rio de Janeiro, home to about 100,000 of our 2.3 million hotspots in Brazil.

As major WiFi aficionados, Fon is very excited about these figures. We are happy that we have been able to play a role in a once in a lifetime event for both tourists and locals alike. With numbers like these, the importance of WiFi as a basic consumer service is becoming more and more clear – and we can’t wait to continue to be part of the experience.

Check out our official Press Release on the results and keep up with all the latest at Fon by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn!