Lithuania has emerged as the country providing the best public WiFi services, beating out wealthier nations such as Singapore and the United Kingdom, according to the results of a new survey based on users’ experiences. The speed and quality of public hotspots have been tested in 184 countries.
The Eastern European country has been investing heavily in free public WiFi that’s among the fastest in the world and this year was recorded at an average of 16.1 Mbps, the survey, carried out by UK-based tech watchdog Rotten WiFi, said. It was the second such annual survey and last year Lithuania also scooped the top spot.
Rotten WiFi, which has declared 2-nd December International Public WiFi Day, collates information on countries’ WiFi networks based on the real-life experiences of people travelling through them. Nearby Estonia took the second place for best public WiFi, with an average download speed of 14.8 Mbps, followed by Southeast Asian powerhouse Singapore in third, at 13.1 Mbps on average.
The UK landed in sixth place (11.7 Mbps), the same as last year, where as the US – where the Internet was largely developed and where most of the world’s biggest internet companies are located – dropped of Top 20 list.
The majority of countries in the Top 20 are located in Europe, only couple in North America and one in Asia. The survey also recorded clients’ satisfaction with WiFi systems while travelling and this year satisfaction rank in the top list is 4 or 5 out of 10 based on NPS method.
Rotten WiFi co-founder Arturas Jonkus said it was important to identify which countries have the best, and worst, WiFi as it would serve to help develop networks and therefore make the experience better for people traveling around the world who increasingly rely on WiFi to stay connected with friends and family and do work on the go.
“It has become a tradition to announce the top countries with the best public WiFi. We are thankful for the users of our apps as they keep testing public WiFi and sharing it with others. We believe this will help to improve public WiFi services worldwide,” he said.
No. Country Avg. download speed, Mbps Avg. upload speed, Mbps Avg. clients’ satisfaction rank (1-10)
- Lithuania 16.1 15.1 5
- Estonia 14.8 10.7 5′
- Singapore 13.1 11.4 5
- Switzerland 12.8 4.6 5
- The Netherlands 11.9 6.7 5
- UK 11.7 6.3 4
- Denmark 11.5 8.7 5
- Ireland 11.5 6.2 5
- Belgium 11.3 3.4 5
- Romania 11.2 7.6 5
- Barbados 11.1 2.4 4
- Latvia 10.9 10.4 4
- Malta 10.5 1.4 4
- Hungary 10.4 4.4 5
- Slovenia 10.2 8.8 5
- Bulgaria 9.7 6.4 5
- Croatia 9.3 7,0 4
- Finland 9.3 6.2 4
- Sweden 9.1 8.4 4
- Canada 9.1 3.9 4
