According to data collected by Statista’s Global Consumer Survey, 16 percent of Dutch online respondents said that they mainly access their internet at home via their neighbor or landlord’s wireless connection. This is more than double the rate of people in the other selected countries, with neighboring Germany at seven percent and France at six percent. According to the survey, only 40 percent of respondents in the Netherlands had access to broadband and an additional 14 percent a mobile connection via smartphone or tablet in 2022.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and the UK had lower rates of adults using their neighbors WiFi, at three percent and two percent, respectively. The U.S. also had a relatively low share of people with broadband, at 43 percent, while the UK’s was higher at 76 percent.
While the reasons for this discrepancy are not fully clear from the data alone, it’s interesting to note that breaking into an encrypted WiFi is not a criminal offense in the Netherlands, even though it is in other countries. Breaking into a computer, however, is.
