Staying connected has never been more important for travellers, but not all airport Wi-Fi is created equally. Sometimes it’s better to connect to the local mobile network! Find out which global hubs have the fastest free Wi-Fi and the speediest mobile downloads.
A new report by Speedtest Intelligence surveyed 38 individual airports that offer free mobile Wi-Fi and mobile speed data, including some of the world’s busiest aviation hubs, during the first quarter of 2023.
US airports topped the list for the fastest airport Wi-Fi with Fort Lauderdale’s Hollywood International Airport Terminal 3 and San Francisco International Airport showing median download speeds of 157.60 Mbps and 156.66 Mbps, respectively.
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (143.42 Mbps), John F. Kennedy International Airport (136.06 Mbps), and Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (136.02 Mbps) rounded out the top five.
For video calls, upload speeds are even faster than downloads at almost all of these airports with SFO having the fastest uploads on the list.
Outside US airports, Shanghai Pudong International Airport (118.67 Mbps), Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris (98.82 Mbps), Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (82.83 Mbps), Dubai International Airport (67.21 Mbps) and Frankfurt Airport (59.10 Mbps) had the fastest median download speeds.
While the US may reign for free airport Wi-Fi, Chinese airports take the gong for the fastest mobile speeds using the local 5G mobile service.
Shanghai Pudong International Airport (308.51 Mbps), Beijing Capital International Airport (304.87 Mbps) and Beijing Daxing International Airport (300.70 Mbps) have the fastest median downloads over mobile – much faster than the airport Wi-Fi.
Salt Lake City International Airport (282.21 Mbps) and Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport (259.86 Mbps) rounded out the top five hubs for mobile speed.
Keen to connect? Check out Sydney Airport’s new daily roaming eSIMs here.