The United States will be the top provider of WiFi in the world by 2018, passing France and staying ahead of China as WiFi availability explodes across the globe, according to a new study.

France has the most WiFi hotspots right now, according to new research by iPass as reported by FierceWireless. The change at the top indicates more than a surge by the United States in providing WiFi — the world as a whole will see the number of hotspots multiply in the next four years.

By the end of 2014, iPass’ study suggests that there will be 47.7 million public WiFi hotspots worldwide, which is about one hotspot for every 150 people today. In 2018, that number could grow to 340 million, or one for every 20 people.

Those figures only include public hotspots, not private, home, or work-based networks.

iPass commissioned the study to understand the hotspot ecosystem and to see where the availability of WiFi is growing in order to achieve their broader version of making WiFi more available to the world.

One of the biggest differences the study found was that WiFi home networks were being shared between residences more often — i.e., someone could allow a family in a different house to access their WiFi hotspot, and vice versa. iPass believes this is a good trend because it encourages the broader use of WiFi.

Meanwhile, WiFi is becoming increasingly available on transportation such as plains and trains. The number of planes with WiFi will grow from 2,795 this year to 10,900 in 2018 in North America, according to the research.

The lack of intense regulation in the WiFi market has encouraged its spread, with 50 percent of commercial hotspots controlled by non-telecommunications companies.