If you have to enter a key or passphrase to access the wireless connection it's encrypted.

If you have a VPN at work, or subscribe to a VPN service such as I referenced on the other post above, then once you establish the private session everything you do is encrypted and your information is not readable to anyone who might be eavesdropping, even if they have access to the wire at the ISP with a network monitor. This is a real privacy advantage. Your ISP will know you connected to the VPN once you establish an encrypted session they won't see your activity within the encrypted VPN session. Web sites won't know your (real) source IP address... and that also means location-based services e.g. Google-search won't show an Italian-language default search page when you're in Italy (unless you choose it).

However, sites will still know who you are if you have browser cookies from prior sessions or if you log in to a personal or business account. What I'm advocating is privacy and security and the ability to protect your online identity.