Ookla Announces List of World’s Fastest Free Wi-Fi Airports Four U.S. Airports Take Top Four

U.S. network testing company Ookla posted Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many travel plans, causing it to suspend its series on airport Wi-Fi. ookla is pleased to be back in business for the summer travel season, providing the latest data on Wi-Fi speeds at some of the world's busiest airports for the first quarter of 2022. ookla's analysis focuses on the free Wi-Fi offered at each airport and the mobile connectivity of Wi-Fi in selected airport lounges. The good news is that every airport surveyed met the recommended speeds for streaming on mobile. However, there is a large gap between the fastest and slowest airports on the list.

Speedtest Intelligence® shows that four U.S. airports top the list of airports offering the fastest free Wi-Fi networks in the world. San Francisco International Airport had a median download speed of 176.25 Mbps in the first quarter of 2022, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had a median download speed of 171.01 Mbps, and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Chicago O'Hare International Airport had 113.64 Mbps and 85.49 Mbps, respectively.Dubai International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and Los Angeles International Airport followed. All of these airports are international hubs through which passengers from around the world pass on their way to a variety of destinations. Passengers waiting for connecting flights at these airports should have no problem with Internet speeds. For video calls, upload speeds at all of these airports are even faster than download speeds, with San Francisco International Airport and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport having the fastest upload speeds on the list. The free airport Wi-Fi at Los Angeles International Airport is a far cry from the other airports on the list in terms of median speed.

Denver International Airport's Wi-Fi is divided into two SSIDs serving different frequency bands, both of which have median download speeds between 44 and 46 Mbps. Connecting to the 5GHz "Denver Airport Free WiFi" will result in faster median upload speeds than "Denver Airport Free WiFi 2.4". The free Wi-Fi at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport also has two different SSIDs, although travelers can choose either one." *WIFI-AIRPORT" has a slightly faster median speed than "WIFI-AIRPORT-STANDARD".

Istanbul Airport in Turkey follows with a median download speed of 31.08 Mbps and a median upload speed of 23.80 Mbps. Spain's Madrid Barajas Airport has a median download speed of 19.76Mbps for free airport Wi-Fi.

Four of the five airports at the bottom of the list are in China. Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport is faster than the other Chinese airports on the list, with a median download speed of 14.69 Mbps. Shenzhen Baoan International Airport and Beijing Capital International Airport follow, showing nearly identical median download and upload speeds on free airport Wi-Fi. Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport's download and upload speeds are slightly slower than those of these two airports. Mexico City International Airport in Mexico has the slowest median download and upload speeds on free airport Wi-Fi of all airports on this list.

Airport lounge Wi-Fi is typically faster than free airport Wi-Fi

In many cases, Ookla found that airport lounges had faster Wi-Fi, such as the United Clubs in Chicago and San Francisco, which had median download speeds of 246.17 Mbps and 244.37 Mbps, respectively, in the first quarter of 2022. the fastest download speed for club Wi-Fi at LAX was the Alaska Lounge (238.59 Mbps).

Outside the U.S., Wi-Fi speeds in airport lounges vary widely. In the first quarter of 2022, the following lounges all had median download speeds faster than the free Wi-Fi at their respective airports: Plaza Premium Lounge in Dubai (148.96 Mbps), Grand Lounge Elite in Mexico City (125.12 Mbps), Privium in Amsterdam Schiphol ( 121.05 Mbps), Emirates Lounge at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris (93.31 Mbps) and Puerta de Alcalá VIP Sala in Madrid (50.28 Mbps).

This greater performance in airport lounges should be expected, as it is much easier to deploy Wi-Fi in a small area like a single airport lounge than to serve an entire airport with multiple terminals. Airport lounge customers are also paying for this privilege, either by the day or by the year, so their expectations are higher.