Traveling businessmen now consider WiFi more of a daily essential than sex, alcohol or even chocolate

Traveling businessmen and businesswomen worldwide consider WiFi to be the utmost daily essential, more important even than sex, alcohol, or chocolate. The shocking results come from the iPass Mobile Professional Report 2016, which surveyed 1,700 “mobile professionals” around the world to gather their information. The data is starting to show that tech dependence is a worldwide phenomenon and internet access is ever important. iPass’s findings echo an affirmation from the United Nations earlier this year that internet access is a human right. Travelers have certainly started demanding it as such, anyways.

“What’s the WiFi?” internet access is the most important thing when you are traveling

The survey also revealed that a growing portion of mobile professionals will decide not only their hotel (21%), but also their airline (35%), based on WiFi availability and quality. A full 75% of responders also affirmed that access to WiFi had increased the quality of their lives. The top reasons being that WiFi allowed them to work from anywhere and download and stream from anywhere. iPass’s Chief Commercial Officer, Patricia Hume, had this explanation:

“The Wi-Fi experience is increasingly affecting mobile professionals’ travel choices, even at 30,000 feet, with more than a third of respondents having selected their airline based on its Wi-Fi connectivity offerings. Long gone are the days when Wi-Fi was only a ‘nice-to-have’ at airports and inflight. Mobile professionals are no longer content to sit and wait for their flights. Instead, they want to remain productive or simply unwind during this valuable time.”

Privacy still isn’t baked into everyone’s WiFi using habits, though. iPass also found that while 66 percent of mobile professionals claimed to be worried about security on free Wi-Fi hotspots, only 38% had ever used a VPN before. That means, even among the respondent group, there were individuals that worried about digital security while using public WiFi, but chose not to use a VPN to protect themselves. This is common anecdotal evidence; and for privacy’s sake, the trend needs to stop.