by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 8:00 AM ET, Tue June 19, 2018
Those in search of fast, free airport Wi-Fi while traveling may want to consider booking all future trips through the Pacific Northwest.
According to a new ranking of North American airports issued by software firm Ookla LLC, Seattle's Sea-Tac has snagged the crown for fastest airport Wi-Fi, unseating last year's winner, which was Denver.
Not only is the Wi-Fi at Sea-Tac faster than all its North American competition, it also beats out other global winners from previous years including Gold Coast Airport in Australia, Congonhas-Sao Paulo Airport in Brazil, Dubai International, Seoul Incheon International Airport in South Korea, Sheremetyevo International Airport in Russia and Mohammed V International Airport in Morocco.
Denver, which nabbed the top spot for the previous two years, is now in second place. Rounding out the top ten are Calgary International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, Vancouver International Airport, Logan International Airport, Orlando International Airport and LaGuardia Airport.
"We can't help you with the long security lines, but we can give you a heads up on whether the Wi-Fi's fast enough to keep you entertained or if you're better off wandering in search of the best coffee on each concourse," states the report, which is based on speed tests that were conducted from January through April of this year on free Wi-Fi at each airport.
The report also notes that there are still far too many airports with a mean download of less than 10 Mbps.
The most improved airport on the list since last year is Atlanta where the mean download speed of free public Wi-Fi increased 2,124 percent since last year. This improvement comes despite being out of commission for 10 days after a cyber attack, notes the Ookla report.
Additional airports with notable improvements in mean download speed include Orlando (over 282 percent) and Montréal (over 233 percent).
And while Denver's Wi-Fi is still fast, its speeds remained relatively flat while Seattle's jumped 135.9 percent to take the lead.
There were also many airports that saw declines in Wi-Fi speeds over the past year, including Detroit (58.9 percent decrease), Miami (27.1 percent decline) and Dallas Fort Worth (25.6 percent decline).
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