August 19, 2014

Question

Kathy Sheppard (SC)

Hi everyone,

Our libraries are investing in software to count wifi usage.   We are still having trouble pinning down exactly what to count as “wifi usage.”   The survey question does not specify what units are to be used in reporting usage, but the assumption is number of sessions…correct? That is, we are to report individual usages (sessions, logins, or hits to the wifi) and NOT individual users.  I think that’s right and it makes sense, in just the same way we count public computer usage (sessions) and not individual users.

However:  Some of the counting software – for example, Meraki (widely used here in SC) reports usage in terms of GB – my limited vocabulary translate that to “gigabytes of usage” – and also counts individual users, but does not report individual, independent sessions.  So, a user may be using several times each day but only gets counted once. 

The report below is from a Meraki installation, showing the individual “distinct clients” (users) and the usage (GB) for the time period.  This library believes the report is showing only one instance of use per user but not any additional sessions by that same user.  I haven’t seen the documentation yet, and we may need to call the vendor to translate the report.

I suspect every vendor has different terminology in their reports but perhaps they all mean the same thing.  If vendors are reporting usage in different units of measure…and libraries are just picking up whatever the usage count may be…this is a problem.

Just wondered if anyone else is struggling to clarify this for each type of wifi counting software in use?   Has anyone created a list of software vendors and how each one shows usage on their reports?

Will soon know more about wifi than I ever imagined.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

SDC Comments

Susan Mark (WY)

Yes, sessions -- just like with computer use.

My opinion is that libraries whose software counts users instead of uses should do the best they can. I don't know about the rest of the list, but I have no problems with libraries counting users if that's all they can get. Slight undercount, but better than nothing. But I have gotten slightly lacksadaisical about such things in the last couple of years.

I think we haven't come up with a list or recommended tools because there are simply too many options out there for doing this. My sense is that it has to be the IT department's or person's call on how to do it.