Report: These are the airports with the fastest free Wi-Fi in the world, US tops the list

Ookla just published its list of airports with the fastest free Wi-Fi in the world during Q1 2022. The analysis focuses on Wi-Fi over mobile connections on free Wi-Fi provided by the individual airports and Wi-Fi at selected airport lounges. Four US airports top the list.

On the top of the list of the fastest free Wi-Fi in airports, San Francisco International Airport showed a median download speed of 176.25 Mbps during Q1 2022, followed by Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Los Angeles International, and Denver International are also part of the top ten airports with the fastest free Wi-FI globally.

Dubai International Airport, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, and Charles de Gaule Airport in France complete the top 10 list.

All of these airports are international hubs that passengers from around the world pass through on their way to all kinds of destinations. Flyers waiting for connecting planes at these airports should have no trouble with internet speeds. In case of video calls, upload speeds are even faster than downloads at all of these airports, and San Francisco and SeaTac had the fastest uploads on the list. There is a wide gap in median speeds between the free airport Wi-Fi at Los Angeles International Airport and the rest of the airports on our list.

Ookla’s report also suggests that Wi-FI in airport lounges is often faster than free airport WI-Fi.

Free Wi-Fi is very nice to have for catching up on your life back home or reliving the glory of your vacation pics as you upload them to your social media accounts, but if you’re looking for the fastest Wi-Fi in an airport, you may want to look into other options. In many cases we found that airport lounges had faster Wi-Fi, like the United Club in Chicago and San Francisco which boasted median download speeds of 246.17 Mbps and 244.37 Mbps, respectively, during Q1 2022. The fastest club Wi-Fi download speed at LAX was at the Alaska Lounge (238.59 Mbps).

Outside the U.S., Wi-Fi speeds at airport lounges ranged dramatically. Ookla gives a simple solution: it’s much easier to configure Wi-Fi over a small area like a single airport lounge than to serve an entire airport with multiple terminals. Patrons of airport lounges are also paying for the privilege, whether by the day or the year, so their expectations are higher, although Ookla’s didn’t always find this to be the case.

You can check the list of airports with the fastest free Wi-Fi in the world here.

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