世論 What Japan Thinks

One aspect where Japan lags far behind many other countries is the availability of Wi-Fi, so to see what people were doing regarding internet access when away from home, goo Research conducted a survey into Wi-Fi, the highlights of which were reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 18th and 19th of September 2012 1,088 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.7% aged sixty or older.

The guy above has found the Nintendo hotspot at the Tokyo Pokemon Center!

The number of access points in Japan is steadily increasing, but mostly branded for each of the mobile carriers, so one needs an account to access them, but fortunately the access is usually free with your mobile phone plan. SoftBank in particular are popping up everywhere, so they must be offering nice incentives for shops to install them, and docomo is slowly spreading through the rail network. Just last week the station next to the office got Wi-Fi, but sadly I cannot pick it up from my desk!

I was surprised to see tethering so low down on the list, however. In Q1SQ, “On the move” may include riding on public transport – some long-distance busses and bullet trains, for instance, offer such services.
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Given the combination of the small size of the average Japanese home, all-too-common paper-thin walls, DIY not being very popular, and of course many providers throwing in free wireless-ready routers and USB wi-fi dongles, it’s perhaps more a suprise that wired LANs are relatively popular in this survey from iBridge Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, into home LANs.

Demographics

On the 7th of June 2010 300 members of the iBridge online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were male, 13.7% in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, 31.3% in their forties, 17.7% in their fifties, and 6.7% in their sixties.

My flat came with built-in wired LAN, and I worry a bit about the security aspect so I haven’t bothered to get any sort of wi-fi add-on kit as it’s not that much bother to plug the LAN cable into the wall.
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