Have you ever wondered why you don’t share your WiFi with your neighbours or passing strangers? It’s a simple question and the simple act of ticking a box on a mobile app can have a big impact on those around us, yet many of us choose to keep our internet connections to ourselves. It’s common practice for people to keep their WiFi networks private and secure, but have you ever stopped to think about your own reasoning behind this decision (assuming you don’t already share your WiFi)? This is a question I have been asking people as part of my research into the use of WiFi because we all know the world would be a better place if everybody shared a little bit more and sharing WiFi is so simple.
In future articles I’ll cover the many benefits to sharing your WiFi, why it is a good idea, how it is going to become a new trend and in time become normal. When conducting the research a few main trends came up, many simply said that they didn’t know how to technically enable it but when pressed further even these people tended to fall into one of three categories, so here are the three main reasons people rationalised not sharing their WiFi.
#1 Security: A small portion of people were actually worried about the security of their WiFi network & I can’t blame them. I was expecting this objection would have come up more than it did but considering how often people change their passwords it is no wonder it was lower on the objection scale. It is fair to be worried about other unknown people with unknown devices hopping on your network because who knows what they could have access to but normally it wasn’t that concern. A small number of people expanded on this further and covered the exact security concerns that they had and most of these people were actually quite technically adept. Most of these people were actually worried about what was being traced back to their internet connection, for example if illegal content was uploaded or downloaded on their home network who would be liable and this is an extremely valid concern.
#2 Slowing Down: One of my favourite quotes from someone with the concern around speed and they were worried about their “neighbours sucking up all of the internet”. Truth be told it can happen, turn the clock back and one of the main reasons why you put a password on your home network was to keep your neighbours off your internet connection, it also happened to be a great way for internet service providers to sell more connections in a neighbourhood. A larger portion of people were worried about this but these people were also unaware of the changes to network that would allow them to control just how much of their connection guests have access to.
#3 What’s In It For Me: The big underlying objection came down to “the little red hen”. For some people it took some coercion to get to this underlying realisation, it isn’t everyday you admit to being greedy and it is somewhat understandable to not instantly open up to a stranger asking you questions about your WiFi usage habits. When really getting down to it, what is the incentive to allow other people onto your WiFi network, if you pay for it why shouldn’t you have unfettered access to it. When you are the person paying almost $100 per month, why should you share it? Historically I too was of the opinion that “since I paid for this unlimited internet connection why should I share it with anybody else around me” and it was a selfish thing to do, at any point I could have enabled the guest network on my router but what’s in it for me? The small percentage of people that I talked to who were already sharing their WiFi openly talked about the benefits to others vs the benefits to themselves.
While there are valid concerns about security and potential impact on internet speed and reliability, the benefits of sharing your WiFi can outweigh these considerations. It is ultimately a personal decision, but one that can have a positive impact on both individuals and communities. Sharing your WiFi can have many benefits for both the person sharing and for those who are able to connect to the shared network so keep an eye out for future articles because I’ll be diving deeper into these benefits and the objections.
