E-Activities via Wireless Network: A Case at Coffee Restaurants in Bangkok,Thailand

摘要

Reasonably, the rapid growth of telecommunication technologies may be accounted as an influential cause of the expansion of practical electronic-activities through wireless network, nowadays. C onsequently, even in recreation hours at coffee restaurants of city people, all of their electronic activities can be proceeded on with the wireless network provided there as an additionally modern service. It is, therefore, of interest to investigate how the people of Bangkok spend their leisured time at coffee shops for the electronic activities through the wireless-network system offered. In addition, what kind of personal devices and what proportions preferred for use at the hotspots available at coffee shops together with sharing data files and softwares including their favorable and negative attitudes toward the wireless- network system they experienced ,all of which is taken into consideration in this study. The sampled data for the analyses are primarily collected in the coffee restaurants located in the distinguished areas stratified according to the in-bound districts of Bangkok by interviewings with questionnaires. In connection with this ,the sample size is estimated by basing on stratification which taking account of the proportion of those coming to coffee shops for wireless-LAN services as an addition to coffee drinking that is experienced in the pilot survey including the procedure concerning proportional allocation. As for data analyses ,the descriptions are, firstly, made for interesting variables concerning the electronic activities performed v ia wireless LAN , offered in the coffee shops, with their personal devices and the sharing of files and / or softwares preferred. Additionally, some noticeable applications concerning their education, social and entertaining activities and business are descriptively analyzed. It is, then, plausible that making inferences about the true means and proportions are made by estimations accompanied with appropriate parametric and nonparametric methods related to hypotheses testings. Reasonably, the inferences are made by utilizing the sampled data arranged as a single group, two and three or more independent groups in accordance with the types of personal devices used and the ways of sharing files and /or programs preferred. Consequently, the mobiles, notebooks and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) used are considered as one of the criteria for arranging the comparative groups. Further, the comparative groups are additionally arranged by basing on types of various activities or applications via wireless network which may be concerned with their educational and socio-economic purposes. As an extension of the comparative analyses, the findings obtained, which are related to how the visitors at coffee shops who spend time there for their electronic activities have some knowledge about LAN, WiFi, Bluetooth and IEEE802.11 technology standard, are considered as one more criterion for arranging the comparative groups. Additionally, the comparison on proportions and associations between two variables are, then, made according to the data characteristics. For two independently dichotomous variables, Fisher Exact test is employed to test for the equality between two interesting proportions. Then, the Crame'r statistic and Phi Coefficient are taken into account as to examine the association strength between the two variables followed by testing for significance (Daniel, 1990). In addition to this, Goodman- Kruskal G coefficient and /or Somer's d statistic may be considered for determining the association between nominal and /or ordinal variables interested.