Heathrow Ranks Poorly in Study of WiFi and Mobile Broadband at 48 Airports
New research from network testing firm Ookla, which operates the popular online Speedtest.net service for broadband users, has revealed that London Heathrow (LHR) in the UK ranks poorly for mobile broadband (4G/5G) and WiFi performance when compared with 48 major airports worldwide.
The study, which used data from speedtest.net that had been collected during Q1 2025, compared each airport’s speeds to the FCC’s (USA) broadband benchmark of 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload to identify which locations deliver strong connectivity, and which fall short.
Out of the 48 airports with sufficient data on mobile broadband connectivity, only 21 met or exceeded the benchmark, compared to just 12 out of 41 for Wi-Fi. “This trend suggests mobile carriers may be prioritizing high-traffic locations like airports,” said Ookla. But such priority is hardly a secret and has always been true for mobile operators, which often focus upgrades on busy locations.
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Overall, London Heathrow (LHR) was sadly the only UK airport able to make it into the table. The airport delivered an average (median) download speed via public WiFi of just 63.24Mbps (uploads of 65.14Mbps), which put it firmly in the bottom half of the table. As for mobile broadband speeds, LHR returned a download of 60.25Mbps (8Mbps upload) – or 90.1Mbps download when only looking at 5G – and found itself in the bottom quarter of the table.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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What’s wrong with 60/8mbps? That’s fine imo and at least Heathrow has a DAS on all networks because some like *cough* *cough* Three refuse to deploy DAS systems half of the time.
Was in Bristol Airport about 10 days ago and O2 could do 30/10mbps at 7am in the morning, probably would have gotten worse later on but that’s perfectly reasonable (keep in mind they have a DAS there). Dread to think what Three would have been like considering they only have DAS systems at Heathrow and Gatwick (and the nearest site to Bristol Airport is just B1+3 on Three).
I am yet to find an airport Wifi that’s good. Usually there are lots of not-spots, not all gates covered, doesn’t work inside restaurants, certain traffic is blocked (VPNs, music services, encrypted messaging services, etc), annoying captive portals, etc.
I found mobile broadband (Vodafone 4G in my case) to be good enough in Heathrow. It covers the whole airport and when I wanted I could stream 1080p videos without any problems so I would rate it good enough/fit for the purpose and I won’t bother with the Wifi there.
Recent experience from Hamad Airport: Yes, wifi is fast. Most likely because pretty much everything was blocked (Signal, VPN, music streaming, i didn’t try youtube) so I guess if no one can use it there is lots of bandwidth left for Speedtest.
Also recent experience from JFK: Wifi simply didn’t work. I got to the captive portal, it made me watch a 30+ seconds video advertisement and got stuck every time.
Not so recent experience from Mexico City: Wifi did exist but it was so slow sending a Signal text message took about 30 seconds.
I recently passed through LHR and my iPhone 16 on VOXI showed full reception but struggled to load a web page or even send WhatsApp messages. It seemed like they were really oversaturated and needed more priority (or I was not being prioritised on the network).