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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."
that will just make this a whole lot easier if i ever have to move to london
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:
Press Release: http://www.rsa.com/press_release.aspx?id=9725
Survey Results: http://www.rsa.com/node.aspx?id=3268
Wardriving has nothing to do with accessing networks. Wardriving is how these studies are done, just finding networks.
If a wardriver chooses to access a network, that remains a different and separate matter. (And not one that's black and white either. How is somebody expected to know what networks are open on purpose for public use? In Seattle there a lot of such networks.)
I myself have long taken the view that if I don't have to do anything more than just associate with access point to be fully connected, it's public. It's up to whomever owns the access point to take proper measures if they want it to be exclusive, otherwise their hardware is acting in their name to provide access to whomever asks for it.
As for these numbers, they seem to be ignoring all the wireless in places like Taipei, Seoul, and Tokyo. I wouldn't be surprised if comprehensive surveys done there blew away places like London.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Access Point != Free hotSpot
London actually has the least HotSpots of the three cities surveyed.
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I went to NYC in summer and took an iPod Touch. Everywhere I went, there were 2 or 3 networks, often some open, often over 8 networks.
I went to London and Paris last month and took an iPod Touch. I'd open it and usually get no networks at all. It was odd going to a coffee shop and seeing no networks. Sometimes, if you went into them, there'd be a T-Mobile network, but it required you pay.
I ended up getting no real use at all out of the iPod Touch other than the London Underground map I preloaded into it.
London and Paris need to learn of this idea of free WiFi.
London also needs to understand the idea of running their subway all night. It was insane that I had to take a taxi to St. Pancras because the train to Paris was boarding before the tube started running for the day.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Wow it sounds like someone is pushing an unsolicited agenda in their posts.
"posted with Lynx, a Commodore 64 web browser (using 2 kbit/s modem)"
I think that very well could be retro enough to requalify as nerdy. Most nerds go top end new gear but you should get your own categorization. 'Get off my lawn! You are blocking the mules from generating enough power for true AI on the difference engine 3.0.' Ok, maybe a little long for a title but you've obviously worked at it. Where did you even GET a 2kbit modem? Did you have to build it yourself? The rest of your post while just an opinion is kinda flamebaitish just because its blatantly ignorant, i'd rate it Offtopic... then i'd rate my post offtopic too.
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."
Well, the result would be the same then. More people per access point = bad.
My UID is prime. Hah!
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.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
I found more than a thousand wifi networks walking down Oxford street with a PDA this spring, and London only has ~12k wifi networks?
To be fair, it's not clearly how many if any of those cameras are government-run, and how many are just private.
Two are supposedly on traffic lights and therefore may either by traffic cameras or, more likely, those familiar traffic sensors which have cowlings that make them look a bit like CCTV cameras. The author declined to investigate. Two more seem to belong to a conference centre (a private business) although the author didn't bother to look into that, assuming they were there on government edict to monitor Orwell's gardens for some reason.
Of the remaining 28, all the cameras actually identified are private cameras belonging to businesses. Mind you there are also "hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices" which for some reason they decided didn't count towards the 32-camera total the way the other 28 cameras belong to businesses did. I'm not suggesting that those "hundreds" of cameras are figments of the author's imagination, or that they are only mentioned to imply that the preceding 28 cameras were somehow related to the government, even though they clearly aren't, but this is a publication associated with the Daily Mail so I doubt that fact-checking got in the way of sensationalism.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
so let me get this straight: there's 3,000 less than 12,276 which is only 72% down from 160% net over gain loss from 49-45% with 97% up from 76% not publicly available.
America's #1 Free Wireless ISP. Nationwide, and now #1 in London too!
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From my NYC apartment my laptop picks up 39 wireless networks. If I take it down 40 floors to the street I detect 3.
I can guess where they measured from...
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.
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
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.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
Lets not forget that in all honesty 24 hour tube isn't something people are that interested in, Brian paddock was proposing keeping the tube open all of friday & saturday (or atleast some of the tube), nobody cared much. There are plenty of 24hr buses to get you home between 1-2 and 5-6 (with the tfl.gov plasterd everywhere, aswell as the nightbus maps its not exactly hard to find them either). Ofc 24hr tube would be nice but id rather see money spend elsewhere than maintaining >250 stations open during the night for almost zero benefit (at night a bus can get from A to B pretty fast, especially as it rarely has to stop ( no traffic & nobody catching the bus at most stops))
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
And to complicate things further, the City of London has a resident population of 7.8 THOUSAND.