Abstract
In this paper we describe and characterize the largest Wi-Fi network trace ever published: spanning seven years, approximately 3000 distinct access points, 40,000 authenticated users, and 600,000 distinct Wi-Fi stations. The 7TB of raw data are pre-processed into connection sessions, which are made available for the research community. We describe the methods used to capture and process the traces, and characterize the most prominent trends and changes during the seven-year span of the trace. Furthermore, this Wi-Fi network covers the campus of Dartmouth College, the same campus detailed a decade earlier in seminal papers about that network and its users’ network behavior. We thus are able to comment on changes in patterns of usage, connection, and mobility in Wi-Fi deployments.
