execMobile (www.execmobile.co.za) announced today an analysis of the roaming habits of business travellers abroad, and found more than a 80% of wireless data is used for work and business-related travel items, but less than a quarter of the data is securely encrypted.
"We have the ability to analyse the Internet traffic generated by our travellers," says founder and MD of execMobile, Craig Lowe, "even though we cannot see their actual data or Web sites visited," he jokes.
Businesses have long complained about the very high international roaming fees charged by carriers, and hence companies are interested in how this data is being consumed when abroad. In 2015, US businesses spent $7.3 billion in cellular data charges for employees roaming abroad. This amount is estimated at R9 billion for outbound South African travellers.
Although the travellers had access to corporate VPNs that encrypted their communications, the vast majority (75%) of mobile business data is not secure, leaving the businesses vulnerable to hacking. Lowe continues: "This is not surprising, as employees' laptops are well protected, but many travellers actually use their phones or tablets when abroad, and these devices typically have no protection, even though they may carry just as much corporate data."
Only 25% of mobile data moved over VPNs, in spite of widespread security concerns about hotel and public WiFi.
South African travellers in particular are exposing themselves to the risk of free WiFi. Research by Kaspersky Lab, an international software security group, has underlined how commonplace cyber crime has become, with 17% of South African travellers having been a victim of cyber crime while abroad.
"However, as ever more essential travel information, from maps and hotel confirmations to check-in details and boarding passes, is stored online, international travellers often have no choice but to connect upon arrival. Many will be keen to use WiFi rather than risk incurring roaming charges, despite the fact that doing so will expose them to risk," Lowe explains. This might explain why Web browsing constitutes nearly 18% of traffic.
Additional insights include:
* Nearly 20% of the traffic was generated by a combination of automated backups, updates and data transfers to or from cloud services such as Dropbox.
* About 11% is a combination of application and automated software updates (anti-virus and system software updates.)
* Only 19% of roaming costs are deemed to be used on leisure activities such as checking social media sites, watching movies and listening to music.
The data generated by execMobile's PocketWifi devices indicated that average daily usage was surprisingly low, at only 146MB daily, with an average of 2.8 devices connected. This would indicate that per connected device, average daily usage was less than 50MB.
Analysis of data usage by international business travellers
Data Type | Typical Activities | Percentage of total data |
VPN (tunnelling), including encrypted company email | Used for most business applications such as Web portals, business software and secure e-mail | 24.73% |
Web browsing | 17.49% | |
Real-time entertainment | Includes streamed or buffered audio and video (RTSP, RTP, RTMP, Flash) | 13.10% |
Bulk transfers | Data transfer using file transfer, file hosting, Bulk Transfer, updates, etc. Examples: Windows Update, FTP; iTunes, antivirus updates or software downloads | 11.25% |
Network storage | Services that let users upload and download network storage content from the Internet. Examples: Cloud apps like iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox. | 8.63% |
Real-time communications | Applications and protocols that allow voice, and video communication. Examples: Skype, MS Lync, Messenger, ICQ, SIP, MGCP, AIM, IRC, Jabber, Viber, Siri Voice. | 7.80% |
Social networking | Social networking applications. Examples: Facebook, Twitter | 6.25% |
Private E-mail | 1.67% | |
Miscellaneous | 9.08% |
The analysis draws on execMobile's data from 150+ businesses, ranging in size from small businesses to large global corporations. Terabytes of data was analysed to understand the business travellers' data usage habits.
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execMobile is all about staying connected abroad, with secure broadband performance you are accustomed to at home, without costly surprises.
execMobile's worldwide mobile broadband solutions eliminate data roaming charges while keeping you online wherever you go.
The company is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since the launch of execMobile in the spring of 2010, it has rapidly expanded the service to offer global coverage and made execMobile the global solution for combating excessive data costs and lack of Internet access.
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