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A new YouGov survey of 16,474 people from across 14 European countries, including the United Kingdom, has very unsurprisingly found that only 10% of respondents expressed mistrust towards European router manufacturers. The figure rises to 38% for manufacturers from the USA, 52% for China and 67% for Russia. But many don’t know where their broadband router is built.
Looking specifically at British respondents and the results aren’t all that different from the overall figures. At 70%, British consumers were shown to feel the greatest mistrust towards Russian manufacturers, followed by China (59%), the USA (36%) and finally European manufacturers only attracted a mistrust score of 11% (slightly above the average from all countries).
However, modern routers are built with components from all across the world – particularly China, which raises a question mark over the real origin of the hardware and software you’re buying. The survey, which was commissioned by FRITZ! (clearly a vested interest), noted that respondents across the entire panel were often unaware of whence the routers originate.
For example, only 14% of respondents knew that devices from TP-Link originate from China and 16% mistakenly thought that the company is European, while 51% were not sure. Similarly, 49% of respondents were also unsure about the company Netgear. Only brands such as Starlink and Huawei could be associated with the correct countries of origin much more frequently: Starlink – USA (55%), Huawei – China (77%). Europe’s largest manufacturer, FRITZ!, was correctly identified by only 26% of respondents in the UK.
“It is also interesting to note the perceived origin of router manufacturers for devices rented from a [broadband ISP]. In all of the participating European countries, the majority of respondents assume that rental devices from major providers are routers produced in Europe, even if they aren’t,” said the study.
All of this has relevance, and not only for security, because users were found to attach great importance to whether a device is developed and manufactured in Europe. More than half (55%) of those surveyed stated that this is important or very important to them. The figures are largely consistent across the individual countries.