The Facts:

Norton, a division of Symantec published a global study on public Wi-Fi use. Here’s thelink to the full study.

In the study, participants from the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Brazil, and Mexico were questioned on their public wireless use habits. After reading the published results, the findings were shocking. To give you an idea of the prevalence of public wireless use across the globe, here are a few statistics:

• 86% of consumers globally have used public Wi-Fi on at least one of their devices
• 57% of consumers believe their information is safe when using public Wi-Fi
• Only 1 in 3 consumers can tell the difference between a secure and unsecured public Wi-Fi network

Interesting…But how does Canada compare with these global averages?

Oh, Canada…

Well, let’s take a look at public Wi-Fi usage in general. The global average is 86%, though in Canada that average is higher at 89%. So of Canada’s 36 million people, roughly 32 million of them are utilizing public wireless networks. Services such as Shaw Go Wi-Fi provide public wireless access at over 75,000 hot spots in Western Canada alone.

Canadians place a far greater amount of trust in our public wireless networks than any other participating country.