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07 Jan 2010
The UK is trailing the US and many other EU countries in the number of available open Wi-Fi access points, according to research by American firm WeFi.
The company said that figures collected from information on 50 million Wi-Fi access points stored in its database showed that only 25 per cent of Wi-Fi access points in the UK are unlocked, compared with 40 per cent in the US.
However, the research indicated that the general trend seems to be for locked networks, with global figures showing that 70 per cent of access points require passwords.
Europe has some of the highest levels of locked networks. Spain and Germany are at 80 per cent, and the lowest are in Belgium and Norway at around 65 per cent.
However, for those working further afield, many countries offer a significantly higher number of open Wi-Fi points. Just 51 per cent of points are locked in Thailand, 54 per cent in Israel and 62 per cent in Argentina.
Phil Redman, an analyst at Gartner, argued that open Wi-Fi access points do not necessarily pose a security threat. Many devices are able to offer their own encryption, and it is important for IT managers to make sure that mobile workers are equipped with devices featuring the appropriate security functionality, he added.
"Many devices have the ability to provide their own security from outside threats, such as virtual private networks or BlackBerry's secure servers that can offer encryption. As such there is no reason why users shouldn't access open networks," he said.
However, Redman cast doubt on whether open networks will grow quickly, as there is little financial benefit to those operating them, or to offer a particularly high level of service compared with Wi-Fi points locked with passwords.
"The cost of running an open network may well mean that many do not offer a particularly good quality of service, whereas those operating locked networks can generate revenue through password access," he said.
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WiFi will become irrelevant for many public place
Now that mobile networks are introducing more sensible lower internet pricing and boosting capacity there will be less and less incentive for many locations to offer WiFi locked or unlocked. Transport and more remote locations may be the only places that need to provide WiFi. For example when was the last time you were in an airport that had a poor mobile internet signal? So why would you pay for WiFi access unless you really desperately need to stream media?
Posted by: Andy Miller 11 Jan 2010
Is this such a bad thing?
The analyst from Gardner spun a nice phrase when he said that ope access points "...do not necessarily pose a security threat." This does depend on the security of each individual PC, which does create an unpredictable amount of risk.
Posted by: F-Secure UK Team 07 Jan 2010