Need for Speed: Top 20 Countries With the Fastest Wifi Revealed

Now we know where to go when you feel the need; the need for wifi speed.

A recent ranking reveals the fastest countries for public wifi, as global internet usage continues to climb and smart phones become more ubiquitous.

According to Rotten Wifi, a website that describes itself as a “public wifi and 3G/4G watchdog,” Lithuania led the world in average download speed in 2016.

At 16.6 Mbps, the former Soviet state beat out the United States and other major world powers for the fastest wifi.

The rest of the Top 5 were: Singapore (15.1), Switzerland (13.8), Denmark (12), and the United Kingdom (11.7).

The United States ranked 19th, just behind Canada and ahead of The Netherlands.

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Fastest Wifi ‘Vital Step’ for Commerce

The CEO of Rotten Wifi’s parent company, TelcoQ, argues offering high speed public wifi is not only a “great way” to draw more customers, but also “vital.”

“WiFi access shouldn’t be something that public spots are considering implementing but rather a vital step for connecting in the modern technology age,” Arturas Jonkus wrote in a post accompanying the findings.

Jonkus also called for community crowd sourcing of wifi speed data, to power future study of fastest wifi and its availability.

“Rotten WiFi users can log on and register their internet speed whatever country they’re in, helping us to build a comprehensive database of the best places to head to get online.”

Lithuania still claimed the top spot when average upload speeds were measured, followed by Singapore, Denmark, Estonia, and Sweden.

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Top 20 countries with fastest public WiFi in 2016
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Airplane WiFi Getting Faster

Along with improving ground-based wireless systems, there has been a concerted effort to speed up airborne connections, as well.

GoGo Air, which controls about half the marketshare for inflight connectivity, is beginning to roll out its next generation in-plane wifi technology, known as 2Ku, with competitors simultaneously boasting of their own innovations.

The company is promising a network 22 times faster than current air-to-ground (ATG) wifi (3.1 Mbps), and seven times faster than air-to-ground 4 (ATG-4) technology (9.8 Mbps). The average home internet is about 15-25 Mbps, GoGo said.

Panasonic Avionics, Global Eagle/Row44, ViaSat, and Deutsche Telekom all compete with GoGo.

ViaSat recently touted its Gen-2 in-flight internet equipment that it expects will “take full advantage of the highly-anticipated massive capacity increases” from its satellites, “offering airlines even faster and higher-quality in-flight internet performance.”

Global Eagle/Row44 has connectivity equipment on 700 aircraft and says it is working on its next generation technology, the Ku-HTS.

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Mark Albert

Mark is a Peabody Award-winner who has reported in newsrooms across the country, most recently as a freelance correspondent at CBS News. He's traveled to 60 countries so far and plans to get to the rest—with a little luck.

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