Water utilities data provider - regulated performance, water quality and connectivity, delivered · Head-to-head
Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use (isoc_tc_mobsuse etc.) vs WiGLE — Wireless Network Mapping (WiFi + Cell Tower Observations)
Which water utilities data provider - regulated performance, water quality and connectivity, delivered data fits your job: Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use, or WiGLE — Wireless Network Mapping. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use (isoc_tc_mobsuse etc.)
WiGLE — Wireless Network Mapping (WiFi + Cell Tower Observations)
Coverage, side by side
| Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use | WiGLE — Wireless Network Mapping | |
|---|---|---|
| Granularity | One row per indicator × individual type × country × year; a few thousand cells per dataset, tens of thousands across the ISOC domain | One row per observation of one network or cell; roughly 2.01 billion distinct WiFi networks across about 27 billion location points |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use | WiGLE — Wireless Network Mapping | |
|---|---|---|
| Documented fields | 6 | 13 |
| Field types | Enum indicator code, enum unit, enum individual type (102 categories), string geopolitical entity code, date reference year, numeric value | String hardware address and network name, string capability array, datetime first-seen stamp, integer channel/frequency/RSSI, decimal coordinates, integer altitude, numeric accuracy, enum radio type, string composite cell key |
| Signature fields | `indic_is` (I_IUMC, portable-device use away from home or work); `unit` (PC_IND); `ind_type` (IND_TOTAL plus age, sex, education, urbanisation, employment splits); `geo` (DE, EU27_2020); `time` (2019); `value` (38.85) | `MAC`/BSSID (1a:9f:ee:5c:71:c6); `SSID` (Scampoodle); `AuthMode` ([WPA2-EAP-CCMP][ESS]); `FirstSeen` (2018-08-01 13:08:27 UTC); `Channel` 161 at 5805 MHz; `RSSI` −43; `CurrentLatitude`/`CurrentLongitude`; `AccuracyMeters` 3.216; `Cell Key` 310410_56967_4118917 |
| Shared concepts | Geography encoded as a code, an explicit time axis, a typed subject dimension, exactly one measured quantity per row | Geography encoded as a code, an explicit time axis, a typed subject dimension, exactly one measured quantity per row |
| Entity granularity | One row per indicator × individual type × country × year; a few thousand cells per dataset, tens of thousands across the ISOC domain | One row per observation of one network or cell; roughly 2.01 billion distinct WiFi networks across about 27 billion location points |
| Overlap verdict | Structural overlap only: a geography key, a clock, a type lane and a measure. Population shares versus radio sightings — no shared entities exist between them. | — |
What each does better
Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use
Harmonised comparability. One questionnaire design produces every number, so Germany's 52.46 percent and the EU27's 38.85 percent for 2019 are measured the same way — something no pile of national sources gives you. Aggregates ride beside members: EU27_2020 totals sit next to every EU member state, EFTA country such as Norway or Switzerland, and candidate countries from Türkiye to Serbia.
Demographic decomposition built in. The ind_type axis splits every figure 102 ways across age bands, sex, education, urbanisation and employment status, so a digital-divide question becomes a filter rather than a research project.
A wider digital-economy neighborhood. The same ISOC domain carries mobile broadband traffic in exabytes and per-subscription gigabytes (isoc_tmi: Germany at 113.047 GB per subscription for 2024), mobile connections to the internet by enterprises (isoc_cimobe_use/n2) and by employees (isoc_cimobp_use/n2), and households-and-individuals series reaching the 2025 reference year — the backdrop behind Eurostat's own finding that nearly 9 in 10 EU internet users connected via mobile phone in 2025.
One honest caveat. The specific ISOC_TC_MOBSUSE flow named for this record stopped resolving during Datadory's August 21, 2026 research pass, so treat the verified isoc_ci_im_i family and its companions as the dependable spine — and note the mobile-access indicator itself currently ends at 2019, pending the successor created by the survey redesign.
WiGLE
Resolution measured in meters, not nations. Where the Eurostat record prints one percentage per country-year, WiGLE carries a position per sighting — latitude 37.76578028, longitude −123.45919439, 67 meters of altitude and 3.216 meters of claimed horizontal accuracy on the sample row. No national figure can answer a block-by-block question.
Signal physics. Channel 161 at 5805 MHz, RSSI −43 for the access point against −81 for the WCDMA sighting — the raw ingredients of coverage, interference and propagation models that a population percentage cannot feed.
Sheer scale. Roughly 2.01 billion distinct WiFi networks across about 27 billion location points, plus 5.74 billion Bluetooth records: as complete a picture of where radios actually stand as any single archive offers.
Technology and operator decomposition. Type separates WIFI from CDMA, WCDMA, GSM, LTE and NR; the Cell Key resolves operator (MCC-MNC 310410, AT&T Mobility on the sample row), location area and cell identity; AuthMode distinguishes open networks from [WPA2-EAP-CCMP][ESS]-class encryption. The encryption mix over time falls straight out of the archive.
Per-object history. FirstSeen timestamps to the second, reaching back to 2001 and filterable across the full archive, give every network and cell its own biography rather than one blended annual figure.
Where they're equivalent
Both are abstractions of third-party reality. Eurostat compiles household survey responses into population shares; WiGLE compiles volunteer observations into estimated positions. Neither observes money, contracts or companies.
Both encode geography and time as structured keys — code-plus-reference-year on one side, coordinates-plus-timestamps on the other — so both arrive machine-readable, with no prose to parse.
Both isolate wireless technology into typed lanes and attach exactly one measurement per row: 102 individual types carrying percentages on the Eurostat side, five radio standards carrying frequencies and signal strengths on WiGLE's.
Both dictionaries are verified — captured against live documentation during Datadory's August 21, 2026 research pass rather than inferred from file shape, a standard 85.7 percent of the catalog meets.
Europe is where they meet. It is the Eurostat record's entire footprint, and alongside North America it is the densest part of WiGLE's map. Outside Europe, only one of the two travels.
The verdict
Verdict: sample both, pick by fit — divided by question, not by leaderboard.
Take Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use (isoc_tc_mobsuse etc.) if your unit of analysis is a population. Market sizing for mobile services by country and demographic, adoption and digital-divide tracking, benchmarking one EU market against another or against the EU27 aggregate, or feeding harmonised demand-side assumptions into rollout and investment models. Accept annual grain, no sub-national detail, and a mobile-access series that currently ends at 2019. That shape suits the journalists & academics use cases for water utilities.
Take WiGLE — Wireless Network Mapping (WiFi + Cell Tower Observations) if your unit of analysis is a place or a radio. Coverage mapping, site-selection ground truth, RF surveys and interference studies, encryption-mode research, or any model that wants positions with signal evidence attached. Accept crowdsourced bias — sightings cluster along roads and population centers in North America and Europe — and observation-level grain you must aggregate yourself. That shape suits the developers & builders use cases for water utilities.
Rule of thumb: if the question begins 'how many people', take Eurostat; if it begins 'where exactly', take WiGLE. Both live in the water utilities data hub, next to the rest of the best water utilities datasets.
Sample both, pick by fit. See Eurostat Databrowser — ICT and Mobile Internet Use · See WiGLE — Wireless Network Mapping
Or take both in one feed
Yes — as the demand and supply views of one connectivity story, which is why they stack despite sharing no entities. A defensible loop: size mobile-internet demand by country and demographic with Eurostat's harmonised percentages (see ICT indicators), then overlay WiGLE's sightings (see crowdsourced network measurement and cell tower database) to ask where radio infrastructure already stands relative to that demand.
Two cautions straight from the records. First, grain: country-year percentages against second-level sightings — aggregate WiGLE to geographies and periods before any join, through a geography table you own. Second, semantics: a percentage of individuals and an RSSI reading are different species of number, so the merge is an overlay, not a union.
Datadory ships either record alone or both merged onto one calendar, delivered daily, weekly, or hourly — your call. Or take both in one feed.
API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Fair questions
Is WiGLE better than the Eurostat record for mobile internet research?
Different instruments. The Eurostat record wins questions about populations: who connects over mobile networks, split by age, sex, education, urbanisation or employment, comparable across EU members and aggregates. WiGLE wins questions about places and radios: where access points and cells physically stand, with signal strength, frequency and encryption attached. Adoption favors Eurostat; infrastructure favors WiGLE.
Do Eurostat and WiGLE cover the same countries?
Partly. The Eurostat record holds EU member states plus EFTA countries such as Norway and Switzerland, candidate countries such as Türkiye and Serbia, and EU aggregates. WiGLE spans the world, densest along roads and population centers in North America and Europe. Europe is the only guaranteed intersection between the two.
Which dataset reaches further back in time?
Depends on the shape you need. WiGLE preserves per-network FirstSeen timestamps reaching to 2001, searchable across the full archive. The Eurostat record answers in annual reference years: 2011-2019 for the mobile-device-away-from-home indicator, with wider digital-economy series carrying 2025 references. Object-level history favors WiGLE; harmonised multi-decade context favors the Eurostat domain.
Can the two datasets be joined directly?
Not row to row. They share no field names and no entities: Eurostat keys rows to indicator, individual type, country code and reference year, while WiGLE keys rows to a hardware address or composite cell identifier with coordinates. Bridging means aggregating WiGLE sightings up to geographies first, then joining through a geography table you own.
Can Datadory deliver both datasets together?
Yes — as two samples or one merged feed, delivered daily, weekly, or hourly, your call. The natural division puts Eurostat's harmonised percentages on the demand side and WiGLE's point-level observations on the supply side, normalized onto one calendar so annual country shares stop colliding with second-level radio sightings.