London Is Still World's Wi-Fi Access Point Capital

ISP Review UK writes "The latest annual Wireless Security Survey from RSA has revealed that London is still the world's wireless network (Wi-Fi) capital, with a total of 12,276 access points detected, exceeding the number found in New York City by more than 3,000. However, the French capital of Paris broke all the records with a 543% year-over-year increase in the number of wireless access points, which compares with London's 72% (down from 160% last year) and New York City's 45% (down from 49%). The survey also examined how many of the wireless access points detected were secured with some form of encryption (hotspots excluded). In New York City, 97% of corporate access points had encryption in place (76% last year). In Paris, 94% of corporate access points were encrypted — although in London, 20% of all business access points continue to be completely unprotected."

Comments

Misleading: They only went to Paris, London &

[absent_speaker]

This press release is really misleading. In the last two years, RSA only surveyed these three cities, no others. So London is the world's wireless capital when they only surveyed NYC, Paris, and London? Not really.

Besides, the gross number of wireless network doesn't tell us much. A per capita figure would have been a more useful comparison. NYC metro has 17 million people, London 8 million and Paris is at 9.6 million. It also looks like they only focused on the city's "financial hubs."

If you read further into the press release, you see this other interesting note, most networks are closed:

However, New York City remains the leader in regards to its concentration of hotspots. At 15%, New York City is well clear of London where just 5% of wireless access points were found to be hotspots. In Paris, hotspots represented 6% of all the access points we located.

Press Release: http://www.rsa.com/press_release.aspx?id=9725
Survey Results: http://www.rsa.com/node.aspx?id=3268

It's true that they are common - up to a point

[MythMoth]

As other posters have noted, the survey was only of three cities.

Even aside from that, for most people it's something of an academic point because unless you have infinite funds and patience you will be constrained to a few networks. Free ones are relatively uncommon.

It can still be useful though - just today I was able to work around a broadband outage in my office in Knightsbridge by buying a day's connection to the local BTOpenZone access point. Mind you, it was irritating that to circumvent a problem with BT's flakey internet I had to buy a service from BT themselves at an extortionate £10 for 24 hours, but still better than no connectivity for a day.

Re:well...

[omeomi]

How in the world are they detecting these? If I live on the 80th floor of a building in New York, are they going to detect my access point? Maybe London just has more lower buildings where wifi can be detected from the ground.

Re:Stupid

[xaxa]

If I wanted free WiFi I'm almost certainly on the ground though.

It would be better to measure the number of WiFi spots reachable from public roads and parks, and usable without payment.

Completely unprotected?

[kunwon1]

although in London, 20% of all business access points continue to be completely unprotected."

Probably not true. I'd wager that the lions share of those 'unprotected' APs would just funnel you straight to a VPN login page, with no other access of any kind.

Not what the RSA survey was about

[eggboard]

I had a briefing from RSA about this survey (writing it up for Ars Technica), and the wardriving that was done was not for the purpose of counting. Rather, it was a subsample of the city: a route that went through business and residential neighborhoods, and that has been driven consistently in London for 4 years. The same route in Paris has been driven for 4 years, and in New York for 7 years.