Gigabit-speed internet is all over the map, literally. With the exception of Antarctica, we found Speedtest results on fixed broadband gigabit speeds (download speeds of 750 Mbps or faster) on every continent. While some continents were better represented than others, we were heartened to see just how far gigabit internet has spread across the globe.

Using data from Speedtest Intelligence during the period August 1, 2017 – November 28, 2017, we defined gigabit tests as any result with a download speed in excess of 750 Mbps for the purposes of this article. While gigabit technically means 1,000 Mbps (or 1 Gbps), that’s the available speed and device limitations and throughput overhead often limit the actual performance of a connection. We’ve also calculated a gigabit user penetration (GUP) figure that represents the number of users who have gigabit results divided by the total population of the country.

Note that gigabit service is often highly localized, so just because your country (or even city) is represented does not mean that you can get gigabit at your house.

What might not be obvious is that North America has the largest number of gigabit tests. Europe is close behind and Asia takes third. Gigabit-speed results fall off dramatically in Australasia, South America and Africa.

Cities with the most tests are likewise spread across the globe from Hong Kong and Singapore to Austin, Texas.

North America

When looking at the top ten locations for gigabit tests in North America, the U.S. dominates with nearly ten times the number of tests as second-place Canada. Mexico comes in a distant third.

Digging deeper into the data, Canada is first place for gigabit user penetration (GUP) in North America with 0.05% of people having received a gigabit speed result. The U.S. has a GUP of 0.04%, Puerto Rico 0.01% and Mexico 0.00%. Gigabit tests pop up elsewhere on the continent, but the numbers are low enough that the service appears to be either prohibitively expensive or available to a very small segment of the population.

Canada, Guadeloupe, Barbados and Martinique have much slower upload speeds than downloads. Asynchronous speeds, when download speed is radically different from upload, like this frequently occur when gigabit is delivered over cable rather than fiber. Panama’s upload speed is especially slow for gigabit service.

Nine ISPs in the U.S. showed more than 1,000 gigabit-level results with AT&T Internet coming out on top. Canada had two ISPs that met the 1,000 test threshold with Rogers having the most.

At the city level, all but one of the ten North American cities with the largest number of gigabit tests are in the U.S. This isn’t surprising given the volume of tests in the U.S. versus the rest of the continent. Several of these cities were ranked among the fastest in the U.S. in our recent market snapshot.

Europe

Among the ten European countries with the most gigabit tests, France comes out on top with nearly four times as many tests as second-place Romania.

Gigabit test penetration is another matter entirely with Iceland, the continent’s least populated country, coming first in the world for GUP with 0.71%. Hungary and Monaco are second and third with 0.15% and France is fourth. Lithuania, Jersey, Romania, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Denmark all have GUPs that are higher than any seen in North America.

Italy has a much slower mean upload speed than download for gigabit results. This asynchronicity usually means that gigabit is delivered over cable rather than fiber.

France has the most ISPs with 1,000 or more gigabit test results with four. Orange slightly edges out Bouygues for number of tests. Hungary, Italy and Lithuania have two ISPs apiece that meet the threshold with DIGI having the most in Hungary and Vodafone in Italy. Skynet and Telia are virtually tied in Lithuania. In Romania only Digi showed more than 1,000 gigabit tests during the period. In Ukraine and the U.K. we only saw Lanet and Hyperoptic, respectively, meeting the criteria.

The ten European cities with the largest number of gigabit tests are well distributed throughout the continent. France holds three spots with Paris, Lyon and Marseille, while Italy holds two with Milan and Turin. Not surprisingly, most of the remaining cities are capitals of the countries they represent.

Asia

As the city with the most gigabit tests in the world, Hong Kong also tops Asia. Singapore is second, Russia third, and Japan a close fourth.

Gigabit user penetration (GUP) shows that Singapore has the largest percentage of users with gigabit tests per capita in Asia and the second largest in the world. Hong Kong comes in second in Asia and Macau third. All three beat the GUPs of any country in North America and are competitive with what’s seen in Europe.

Upload speeds in the ten Asian countries with the most gigabit tests are much more consistent with gigabit expectations than they are in North America or Europe which likely means that fiber is prevalent.

Singapore had five ISPs with more than 1,000 gigabit tests with SingTel coming in first for volume. Hong Kong had three with NETVIGATOR showing by far the most tests. India, Russia and South Korea each only showed one ISP that met the 1,000 gigabit test threshold. Those ISPs were ACT, Rostelecom and KT, respectively.

As Hong Kong and Singapore top the list of cities with the highest gigabit test volume in the world, they also win Asia. Russia has three cities on the list.

Australasia

New Zealand has ten times as many gigabit speed tests as Australia. No other country in Australasia showed gigabit tests during the period we studied.

New Zealand’s gigabit user penetration (GUP) was a globally competitive 0.13% while Australia’s barely registered.

Mean upload speed on gigabit tests in Australia are faster than those in New Zealand, though both countries show competitive speeds which likely means that gigabit service is delivered over fiber.

In New Zealand we saw two ISPs that topped the 1,000 gigabit test threshold we set with MyRepublic slightly edging out Spark in gigabit test volume. No ISP in Australia showed 1,000 or more gigabit results in the period we studied.

All but one of the cities with the highest volume of gigabit tests in Australasia were in New Zealand with Auckland coming in first, Christchurch second and Wellington third. Sydney represents for Australia at seventh.

South America

South America has about one tenth the number of gigabit results compared to Australasia. Brazil has the most, while Peru, Argentina, Chile and Colombia show enough tests to indicate that gigabit service is available but not at all common. We saw a scattering of tests in Paraguay, Bolivia and Ecuador, but they were sparse enough that we’re not prepared to say gigabit internet is truly available in those countries.

No country in South America showed a gigabit user penetration (GUP) that rounded higher than 0.00%, but mean upload speeds on gigabit tests were more consistently strong in all countries than on any other continent which we would expect to be true if gigabit was delivered over fiber.

Similarly, because of the overall volume of tests, we saw no ISP with more than 1,000 tests.

While the number of tests in all cities in South America is low, Brazil boasts not only the city with the largest number of gigabit tests (Rio), but three other cities on the above list. Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile are neck and neck for second in test volume. Peru has three cities on the list.

Africa

For the most part, gigabit-speed internet does not seem to have come to Africa. South Africa is the main exception as the only country with more than 100 gigabit results during the period we studied. Kenya, Algeria, Namibia and Reunion show enough results to suggest that an elite few have access to gigabit speeds. We can’t say whether that’s for reasons of infrastructure or price. We also spotted Gigabit results in Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Mauritius and Nigeria, but those were very rare and not necessarily indicative that gigabit service is available.

No country in Africa showed a gigabit user penetration (GUP) that rounded higher than 0.00% and the test volume was low enough that no ISP had more than 1,000 gigabit results.

All but two of the African cities with the largest volume of gigabit tests are in South Africa. Cape Town comes in first for test volume with Johannesburg South second and Sandton third. Nairobi represents for Kenya and Windhoek for Namibia.

Are you seeing gigabit-level service that we missed? Take a Speedtest on our desktop app for MacOS or Windows so we can count you in when we update our data.

Two years ago, LinkNYC set out to provide New Yorkers with free Wi-Fi using a network of Links that offer “superfast, free public Wi-Fi, phone calls, device charging and a tablet for access to city services, maps and direction.” The experiment worked, and we’re here to report on how fast the network really is, whether it holds up to heavy use and which parts of the city are seeing the most benefit.

What is LinkNYC?

LinkNYC uses kiosks (“Links”) to provide internet connectivity to the five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island). The project resulted from a competition initiated by the New York City government to find a new use for the City’s payphones. Service at the first 500 Links was available by the end of 2015. One thousand, one hundred and sixty-four are active as of this writing with another 215 installed and awaiting final connection. The project aims to have 7,500 Links online by the end of 2023. Each link is connected to the LinkNYC fiber network and is capable of speeds up to 1 Gbps. The Links use 802.11ac Wave 2 access points with support for 4×4:4 MU-MIMO.

LinkNYC was created by CityBridge, a consortium of companies including Intersection (a portfolio company of Alphabet Inc.’s Sidewalk Labs), Qualcomm and CIVIQ Smartscapes. Beyond a $300 million capital investment from CityBridge, LinkNYC is funded through advertising revenues from ads shown on screens on the Links themselves and is projected to create more than $500 million in revenue for the City of New York.

How fast is fast?

Speedtest data reveals LinkNYC offered up a mean download speed of 158.98 Mbps and a mean upload of 123.01 Mbps in September 2017. This free network is faster by 74% and 165%, respectively, than New York City’s average download and upload speeds over mobile Wi-Fi. New York’s mobile Wi-Fi download and upload speeds for all networks combined are respectively 249% and 312% faster than those over cellular networks. That means LinkNYC users are seeing download speeds 511% faster than they would be if they were connecting on cellular networks. LinkNYC’s mean upload speed was 996% faster than cellular.

Even better, we can see that the speeds available on LinkNYC are improving rapidly. Though the Speedtest results fluctuate somewhat on a day-by-day basis, on January 1, 2017, the average download speed was 95.70 Mbps and the upload was 81.50 Mbps. On September 30, the daily average download speed peaked at 201.00 Mbps and the upload speed was 177.10 Mbps.

These daily speeds likely reflect limitations of mobile devices, not those of the LinkNYC network.

One thing to note is that while the LinkNYC network is reportedly capable of 1 Gbps speeds, most mobile devices are not. The Speedtest results graphed above are likely limited by a world where the peak achievable speed for an iPhone 5 maxes out at around 100 Mbps and an iPhone 7 at around 560 Mbps.

To top it off, LinkNYC’s daily speeds are faster still than the averages for the U.S. as a whole. In September, we saw a mean download speed over mobile Wi-Fi of 66.25 Mbps in the U.S., while cellular came in at 23.98 Mbps. Mean upload speed over mobile Wi-Fi for the U.S. was 23.59 Mbps, while cellular was 8.38 Mbps.

Is it secure?

LinkNYC actually has two networks — one called “LinkNYC Free Wi-Fi” that’s open and available to all and “LinkNYC Private.” Hotspot 2.0-compatible devices are automatically prompted to join this second network which is protected using WPA2 encryption and Hotspot 2.0 technology which facilitates cellular-like roaming on capable devices. That means that once a phone joins the “LinkNYC Private” network, the phone’s connection to the network is handed off from access point to access point as a user moves throughout the city. Most carriers have offered Hotspot 2.0-capable phones since 2014 (T-Mobile has for much longer).

We can’t say for certain that the private network is secure, but the fact that it is encrypted likely makes it more secure than your average coffee shop connection. In light of the recently discovered global WPA2 vulnerability, we asked LinkNYC how vulnerable their network was. The response was: “The Link private network is not at risk. The combination of access point firmware and the network configuration assure the integrity of encrypted WPA2.”

Speeds over the two networks are similar with downloads over “LinkNYC Private” Hotspot 2.0 network just 9.4% faster than those on “LinkNYC Free Wi-Fi”. This could be due to the fact that newer phones are both more likely to offer faster speeds and to be Hotspot 2.0-ready as well as the fact that fewer users are accessing this second network.

Do speeds hold up during peak periods?

Yes, yes they do. The graph below shows that even during periods with the highest volume of tests (from 3-4 p.m.), the LinkNYC network maintains peak download speeds. The slowest download speeds, seen from 5-6 a.m. and 8-9 a.m., still maintain an average download speed over 120 Mbps.

The far-reaching impact of LinkNYC

How many people are using it?

According to LinkNYC, the network sees 300,000 users per day. We saw 19,289 Speedtest tests taken with Speedtest over the LinkNYC network from 7,594 unique users from January 1, 2017 through October 11, 2017. This compares with the 2,436,040 Speedtest results from 322,851 users on all mobile Wi-Fi networks in New York City during the same period.

Where can you get it?

As described above, Links are rolling out rapidly. You can see the current map of available Links here, but we found that the map at today’s writing corresponds closely with the map of Speedtest results we’ve seen over the past year.

Much of Manhattan is covered by Links, with the exception of Washington Heights north of the George Washington Bridge and lower Manhattan below Worth St. Links are sparser in the Bronx with nothing north of West Kingsbridge Road or east of Webster Ave. (north of 161st) and Third Ave. (south of 161st).

The alignment of Links along major thoroughfares becomes more obvious in Queens and Brooklyn. In this area, we see a large gap around Bushwick and Ridgewood with nothing south of 39th St. and Clarendon Rd. A whole swath of northeast Queens (bordered by Grand Central Parkway) also exists in a Link-free zone.

Meanwhile, in Staten Island you’ll find Links on sections of Hylan Blvd. and Richmond Rd. with a few scattered in between.

Links are required to have a range of at least 150 feet, although a spokesperson for LinkNYC reported a Speedtest result as fast as 80 Mbps at 400 feet. At either distance, people living in neighborhoods with a more sparse Link distribution may not have access near home.

The map above shows that speeds vary not by neighborhood but by distance from a Link.

Can I use it at home?

If you’re lucky enough to live near a Link, you actually can use it for your home internet; there’s nothing in the terms of service to say otherwise. But, unless you’re sitting within the unassisted range of a Link, we wouldn’t recommend it.

We were able to identify Speedtest results that were using extenders and/or repeaters to rebroadcast the service farther into a building, and those tests showed speeds 57% slower than New York’s 90.89 Mbps average for downloads over mobile Wi-Fi.

Approaches to municipal Wi-Fi

LinkNYC’s ad-based, public-private partnership is only one approach to municipal Wi-Fi. In Leiden, Netherlands, a non-profit organization set up an independent, community-based network run by volunteers. Venice offers free Wi-Fi to all residents and Longmont, Colorado offers free municipal Wi-Fi in several locations, mostly parks, as part of their Gig City initiative.

LinkNYC isn’t the first free Wi-Fi network, but it’s one of the largest. And, despite some bumps along the way, it’s successfully bringing fast, free public Wi-Fi to the masses. The project is so successful that CityBridge has just extended the same model to London as InLinkUK.

Are you enjoying free mobile Wi-Fi on either LinkNYC or InLinkUK? Take a Speedtest on Android or iOS so we can share details about the performance of these networks over the long haul. Select the CityBridge server when taking your test to get the most accurate results.