Ookla Research™ Articles
| February 12, 2026

Verifiable Connectivity: How Ookla and Azerbaijan’s Tourism Leaders are Raising Hotel Wi-Fi Standards

Ookla, the Azerbaijan Information Communication Technologies Agency (ICTA), the Azerbaijan Tourism Board (ATB), and Azerbaijan Hotel Association (AHA) hosted the Azerbaijan Hospitality Connectivity Summit in Baku on 27 January 2026. Senior local representatives from the telecommunications, tourism, and hospitality sectors, including top hotels in Azerbaijan, gathered at the Summit to discuss the importance of verifiable venue connectivity for enhancing guest satisfaction, driving business performance, and advancing the nation’s digital ambitions. The event was also an opportunity to demonstrate Ookla’s Speedtest Certified® program to prepare a path towards a national connectivity label for the hospitality sector, establishing Azerbaijan as a global reference model. 

Key Takeaways

  • Azerbaijan has achieved significant success in improving national fixed broadband connectivity through the “Online Azerbaijan” project. Launched in 2021, this initiative boosted broadband access from 9% of households and businesses in 2020 to nearly 100% by 2025. National median internet speeds have surged almost ninefold in five years to nearly 90 Mbps, supported by over 95% fiber penetration of broadband subscribers.
  • High-quality Wi-Fi is considered a core requirement for hotel certification and is being actively integrated into the tourism sector. ATB has made Wi-Fi mandatory for hotel certification and uses digital platforms for certification, while AHA has been raising awareness about the necessity of high-quality connectivity and endeavours to bring international best connectivity practices to the country. However, challenges persist in auditing large hotels and conference halls to ensure they consistently deliver the expected service quality and in monitoring facilities during major events.
  • Despite strong national broadband performance, hotel Wi-Fi often underperforms guest expectations, leading potentially to significant economic losses and operational difficulties. Analysis showed that the majority of selected 5-star hotels in Baku offered sub-optimal network experiences (below 25 Mbps), indicating an issue inside the venue rather than with access connectivity. Studies show that inadequate Wi-Fi quality represents an opportunity cost, whereas providing high-quality and verified connectivity translates directly into financial gains such as increased Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) and Average Daily Rate (ADR).
  • The Summit concluded with steps towards establishing a national connectivity label for the hospitality sector in Azerbaijan, leveraging Ookla’s Speedtest Certified™ program. This initiative aims to address the critical need for a consistent, independent, and robust method to verify that connectivity delivers reliable, high-quality performance across the entire venue. The event launched an exclusive program for local hotel and venue managers to get their properties verified, aiming to position Azerbaijan as a reference model for other countries.

Azerbaijan’s advances in fixed broadband access and performance

The deputy minister of Digital Development and Transport, Mr. Sameddin Asadov’s keynote speech highlighted Azerbaijan’s significant advancements in digital connectivity over the past five years, primarily through the “Online Azerbaijan” project. This initiative increased broadband access from just 9% in 2020 to almost 100% of households and businesses in 2025. The deputy minister emphasized that connectivity is now a strategic national asset, crucial for economic growth, public services, and overall quality of life, and that reliable, high-quality connectivity has become a defining element of modern infrastructure.

The impact of the ‘Online Azerbaijan’ project was highlighted by the head of the Statistics Division at ICTA, Dr. Samir Orujov. Based on Speedtest Intelligence data, the national median internet speeds surged from over 10 Mbps in 2020 to nearly 90 Mbps in late 2025, close to a 9-fold increase. With more than 95% of broadband subscribers using fiber technology by the end of 2025, broadband infrastructure is more than capable of supporting all hospitality applications and providing an excellent guest and visitor Wi-Fi experience. Mr. Murad Quliyev, Head of Electronic Communication at ICTA, argued that solving connectivity issues in the last 10-15 meters indoors is critical to maximizing the benefits of fiber speed to end devices connected with Wi-Fi, and facilitating the execution of Azerbaijan’s digital transformation.

The quality of Wi-Fi access is a high priority for the tourism sector in Azerbaijan, but there are quality assurance challenges

Tourism is a key pillar of Azerbaijan’s economic development strategy, and it looks to tourism to promote its cultural heritage and strengthen its regional influence. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC),  the sector was projected to contribute AZN 10.3 billion ($6 billion) to Azerbaijan’s economy in 2025, a 32% increase year-on-year, representing 8.2% of total GDP, and supporting 472,000 jobs. WTTC forecasts that tourism will contribute 11% of GDP and support almost 670,000 jobs by 2035.

Senior representatives from the tourism industry bodies, ATB and AHA, shared their local perspective on the role of connectivity in the sector. They also discussed existing and future initiatives to integrate verifiable connectivity standards with these sectors, not only to enhance transparency and elevate the guest experience, but also to drive the economy forward.

Mr. Rashad Aliyev, Deputy CEO of ATB, explained that ATB is responsible for the structural and regulatory aspects of the tourism industry, particularly through the implementation of international standards like those from the Association of Hotels, Restaurants & Cafés in Europe (HOTREC) and the Hotelstars Union. He emphasized that high-quality connectivity is a core requirement for hotel certification and that digital infrastructure is important for large-scale tourism and events. He cited ATB initiatives and projects in this regard:

  • Certification: ATB has certified 283 hotels under a national star system that stipulates mandatory Wi-Fi requirements.
  • Infrastructure & Events: In collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport, ATB  performs pre-event reviews of hotel connectivity and encourages their owners to upgrade network capacities to support high-profile international events.
  • Digital Tools: ATB has integrated hotel certification into a centralized digital platform, including electronic applications, and has established a unified digital registry for all accommodation types.
  • Smart Solutions: It is encouraging the adoption of AI-powered concierge tools, mobile check-in/out services, QR menus, and in-room automation to enhance the guest journey.

Mr. Rashad Aliyev also highlighted the challenges in auditing large hotels and conference halls to ensure they meet service benchmarks, and in monitoring facilities to maintain that quality during major events.

AHA serves as the representative body of Azerbaijan’s hotel industry, focusing on raising awareness for priorities such as high-quality connectivity. Eldar Alimuradov, Chairman of AHA, reiterated that reliable digital access is a fundamental component of the guest experience and that AHA acts as a “connector” between international best connectivity practices and the local realities faced by hotel operators. As such, he highlighted the need for private-public partnerships to ensure that hotels remain competitive and modern.

Poor network quality in hotels has a proven reputational and economic impact

Ookla’s senior executives from Sales and Product emphasized the importance of connectivity for hospitality brands and tourism, because it increasingly influences guest choice and property operations. However, hotel Wi-Fi often underperforms guest expectations, despite strong national broadband, pointing to internal issues within the properties. For example, Speedtest Intelligence data reveals a significant gap: less than 50% of select luxury hotels across the Middle East and North Africa provided Wi-Fi speeds of 50 Mbps or faster. Many Gulf countries rank top globally for broadband speed, yet hotel Wi-Fi underperforms, indicating the issue lies inside the venue, not with access connectivity. 

A similar analysis of Wi-Fi download speed using Speedtest data across a selection of 5-star hotels in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, revealed that the majority of the selected venues offered sub-optimal network experience to their guests. This indicates a clear misalignment between service delivery and guest expectations.

Wi-Fi Median Download Speeds at a Sample of 5-Star Hotels in Baku, Azerbaijan
Source: Speedtest Intelligence® | 2025

Hotel managers are often unfairly blamed, but the reality is that hospitality environments present one of the most demanding challenges for Wi-Fi due to a combination of factors:

  • The physical design of buildings, which includes materials like concrete and marble that degrade radio frequency performance
  • The unmatched device density, with each guest room potentially hosting 4–6 personal devices
  • Extreme peak demand from large events. 

Further complications arise from the need for expanded outdoor coverage, interference from harsh operational zones like kitchens and laundries, and the inherent risk of co-channel interference from dense access point placement.  

During the summit, presenters and panelists pointed out that current hotel classification systems and national frameworks confirm that Wi-Fi is available but generally fail to define or verify guest-grade performance. These existing schemes often focus on limited areas or nominal technical thresholds, stopping short of validating the real-world user experience. Therefore, there is a critical need for a consistent, independent, and robust method to verify that the network delivers reliable, high-quality performance and meets baseline security expectations across the entire venue, for all devices, and even during peak conditions.

Beyond the importance of good connectivity for hotels’ reputation and guest satisfaction, inadequate Wi-Fi quality represents a significant opportunity cost to hospitality industry players. The potential economic losses resulting from inadequate connectivity can be important, as illustrated by two figures shared in a presentation sourced from a report published by VodafoneThree in 2025.

  • Small & medium sized enterprises powering the UK’s tourism industry missed out on £1.5 billion ($2 billion) because guests cannot access reliable high-speed connectivity.
  • 19% of hospitality businesses were unable to fully capitalize on peak 2025 demand (e.g., New Year season or summer festivals) due to network failures or inadequate bandwidth.

Conversely, offering verified, high-quality connectivity that improves customer satisfaction can directly lead to increased financial returns. This is supported by data presented at the conference (based on a study by the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research): a mere 1-point increase in a hotel’s online reputation score can generate significant financial upside, specifically a 1.42% increase in Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) and a 0.89% increase in Average Daily Rate (ADR), which can project to hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue for a single property. Beyond individual guest stays, verified network quality is also a critical differentiator for winning lucrative Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) contracts, reinforcing a destination’s reputation as a premier business hub.

Setting the stage for a national connectivity label for the hospitality sector in Azerbaijan

The last session of the summit was dedicated to hotels’ IT managers, where a comprehensive overview of the Speedtest Certified™ program was presented as well as a number of recent use cases of venue Wi-Fi assessment and certification, including, MEO Arena in Lisbon, the Social Hub in Rome, and Baku Convention Center, which hosted the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) in November 2025, with more than 2,000 delegates from 150 countries. 

The summit then concluded with the launch of an exclusive program in Azerbaijan for local hotels and venue managers to achieve verifiable certification and showcase their network excellence through a rigorous and thorough certification process.

The event served as a forum to discuss how verifiable venue connectivity is essential for enhancing the guest experience, driving business performance of the tourism industry, and advancing Azerbaijan’s digital transformation. The presentations and panel discussions reinforced the commitment of Ookla and public authorities, including ICTA, ATB, and AHA, to collaborate in advancing the digital transformation of the tourism industry and strengthening Azerbaijan’s position as a technologically advanced and investment-friendly nation.

If you are interested to learn more about Speedtest Certified, do not hesitate to get in touch.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

About the author

Karim Yaici

Karim Yaici is the Lead Industry Analyst at Ookla covering the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. Previously, he directed Analysys Mason's MEA research program, where he was responsible for telecoms forecasts, market reports, consumer surveys, and custom research.

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Ookla Research™ Articles
| February 11, 2026

5G SA, AI Demands, and Network Resilience Will Dominate the Mobile Market in 2026

Network Evolution

Mobile networks are entering a new phase in 2026. The story is no longer limited to coverage expansion or ultra fast download speeds. Operators, regulators, and enterprise buyers are increasingly focused on whether networks can deliver the reliability, responsiveness, and the capacity needed to support new services under real-world conditions—measured not just by download speeds, but by how networks behave under load, during disruptions, and in latency-sensitive use cases.

That shift is happening alongside meaningful changes in network architecture. Standalone 5G (5G SA) is gaining ground in multiple markets, and early 5G Advanced launches are building on SA foundations. Network resilience also is receiving far more scrutiny after a year of high-profile disruption events. At the same time, satellites are taking on a bigger role, from redundancy to direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity.

This article examines what those changes mean for 2026, including where 5G SA is expanding, why resilience has become a priority, how D2D is reshaping coverage assumptions, along with why AI-driven traffic is forcing networks to rethink uplink speed and latency. For a deeper discussion of these trends by Ookla Research’s analyst team, watch our webinar, From 5G SA to D2D and AI: What Ookla’s Analysts Say About the Year Ahead in Mobile.

Standalone 5G Expands, but Progress Varies Sharply by Region

Standalone 5G continues to grow, but the transition from non-standalone (NSA) deployments looks very different depending on the region. Ookla Speedtest data shows that the APAC region still leads global 5G SA deployment and adoption, reaching roughly 33% penetration by Q3 2025. Growth has begun to plateau slightly year-over-year, which suggests slower rollout or slower migration from NSA among existing 5G users, rather than a lack of initial SA capability.

Within APAC, China stands out for the scale and consistency of SA availability. China reached roughly 80% 5G SA sample share in our results, reflecting nationwide commercial SA cores across all major operators rather than limited or city-level deployments. India has also become a meaningful SA market since launching in 2023, though India’s SA growth has been driven largely by a single operator, resulting in rapid uptake but less uniform national availability.

Other regions show progress, but the gap remains large:

  • North America: Incremental SA expansion. North America’s SA penetration climbed to 27% sample penetration in Q3 2025, up from 18% in the previous year, as operators expanded SA on top of existing 5G coverage rather than building new networks from scratch.
  • Japan and South Korea: Cautious migration. Japan and South Korea reached approximately 10% SA penetration at the end of 2025, reflecting cautious migration from mature NSA deployments.
  • Europe: Core transition lag. Europe remains at just over 2% SA penetration, as many operators continue to prioritize returns on earlier NSA investments and delay full core transitions.
  • Gulf region: Early launches, limited scale. The Gulf region is close behind Europe at roughly 1.7%, despite early commercial launches and aggressive public timelines.

Europe and the Middle East still trail in SA penetration, but both regions have accounted for a large share of newer commercial SA deployments in recent months. While adoption remains low today, recent launches indicate that SA is moving from trials to broader commercial rollout in these markets.

5G SA Performance Gains Are Clear—Latency Tells the Story

5G SA performance improvements are visible across multiple metrics, but latency stands out as the most meaningful indicator of what SA enables. Download speeds on SA have reached new highs in several markets. For example, in Q3 2025 the UAE led with a median SA download speed of roughly 1.2 Gbps, followed by South Korea (740 Mbps), and Greece (~500 Mbps). The U.S., which was a leading country on SA speeds in 2024, reached over 318 Mbps median SA download speeds in 2025.

Download speed remains a useful benchmark, but multi-server latency shows the deeper value of SA architecture. Standalone architecture removes reliance on an LTE anchor and reduces signaling overhead, which consistently delivers better latency than NSA. Globally, 5G SA delivered a 23% reduction in median latency compared with 5G NSA. Certain markets recorded even sharper improvements, including:

  • Hong Kong: latency improvement of ~43% vs NSA
  • France: latency improvement of ~31% vs NSA

Latency improved in several markets in 2025. Hong Kong recorded multi-server latency below 17 ms, followed by Macau (19 ms), Singapore (~21 ms), and Switzerland (~23 ms). This latency improvement likely reflects a shorter path between the device and the core network under SA5G.

Standalone 5G provides the architectural foundation for 5G Advanced—the next phase of 5G evolution. 5G Advanced is a software-driven upgrade that expands SA-based capabilities and performance. China has driven early adoption, with a reported 50 million 5G Advanced users in 2025. Operators in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have launched commercial 5G Advanced services or announced availability plans. Trials have expanded across Europe, South America, and Asia, and additional commercial announcements are expected in 2026. In the United States, operators such as T-Mobile have begun positioning nationwide standalone networks as the foundation for future 5G Advanced capabilities, with broader feature enablement expected as standards and device ecosystems mature.

For operators, the central question remains monetization. Consumer monetization of 5G SA features like network slicing remains limited in many markets, while enterprise use cases map more directly to 5G SA and 5G Advanced capabilities. Lower latency, stronger quality-of-service controls, and more predictable performance align more naturally with enterprise and industrial requirements than with everyday consumer usage.

Network Resilience Becomes Both a Policy Priority and a Service Differentiator

Network resilience moved into sharper focus in 2025 after several high-profile disruption events demonstrated how quickly connectivity degrades when power, transport, or cloud dependencies fail. Power outages, subsea cable disruptions, and cloud service failures each exposed different failure modes, but the outcome was the same: mobile availability dropped when users needed it most.

At its core, resilience comes down to two factors: maintaining essential connectivity during unplanned shocks and restoring service quickly once disruption occurs. Analysis of the Iberian Peninsula blackout showed a direct relationship between grid failure and cellular uptime. When power failed, mobile service degraded rapidly, and recovery timelines varied significantly by operator, depending on backup power duration at sites, transport redundancy, and restoration processes.

Resilience challenges extend beyond physical infrastructure. Backup generators and battery autonomy remain critical, but recent cloud outages illustrate how service degradation can originate in software and cloud systems, not just the underlying network. Site-level hardening alone does not prevent outages when orchestration platforms or cloud services fail, turning software reliability into a network availability issue even when radio sites remain powered and functional.

Operators and regulators are responding:

  • Network design and redundancy: Operators are investing in circuit diversity, multi-path design, and improved site-level power autonomy to reduce single points of failure.
  • Resilience as a service feature: Some operators are beginning to treat resilience as a differentiator, bundling it into consumer offerings such as automatic cellular (4G/5G) backup for home Wi-Fi, helping households stay online when the primary broadband connection goes down.
  • Regulatory power requirements: Regulators in several markets are pushing harder on minimum hours of battery autonomy or generator requirements, in some cases scaling requirements by population density or site criticality.

Resilience is no longer a low-profile engineering topic. Indeed, resilience has become part of customer experience, national infrastructure planning, and regulatory oversight.


Direct-to-Device Connectivity Is Moving from Novelty to Commercial Reality

Direct-to-device (D2D) satellite connectivity is moving from early trials toward limited commercial availability. Standard smartphones can now connect directly to satellites without specialized hardware, extending basic connectivity beyond the reach of terrestrial networks.

Early deployments show growing usage. Operators in the United States, along with markets such as Canada and New Zealand, have moved past pilot phases, reporting sustained messaging activity rather than purely emergency use. Several technical and commercial models are developing at the same time, ranging from smartphone-native satellite messaging to operator-partnered satellite services that reuse existing cellular spectrum. Several technical and commercial models are developing at the same time, ranging from smartphone-native satellite messaging to operator-partnered satellite services that reuse existing cellular spectrum.

D2D is unlikely to replace terrestrial mobile networks, but it is reshaping expectations around coverage and resilience. Satellite connectivity increasingly serves as a fallback layer during outages and a coverage extender in hard-to-reach areas, reducing reliance on additional tower builds alone.

AI Is Forcing Networks to Rethink Upload and Latency Requirements

AI-driven applications are starting to change how networks are used. Unlike video streaming, which is overwhelmingly download-heavy, AI interactions generate sustained upstream data and place greater emphasis on responsiveness, shifting network planning priorities toward upload capacity and latency.

Forecast data suggests enterprise AI traffic will continue to grow. Ericsson reports AI-driven traffic trending toward a more symmetrical pattern—approximately 74% download and 26% upload—compared with the historical 90/10 ratio. Current 5G networks in many markets still deliver upload ratios between 6% and 15%, highlighting a growing mismatch between emerging AI demand and existing network configurations.

Latency requirements also become more complex under AI workloads. Basic LLM queries and voice assistants are less sensitive to latency fluctuations, but agentic AI (multi-step AI systems that take actions) and other time-sensitive systems are not.

Current cloud infrastructure latency often averages around 35 ms, which is generally sufficient for many consumer AI interactions. Industrial robotics, AR systems, and autonomous applications introduce tighter responsiveness expectations, where delays can compound across multi-step workflows. These lower-latency requirements are pushing networks toward architectural changes:

  • Standalone 5G adoption: Supporting more consistent, low-latency performance
  • Elastic capacity planning: Accommodating bursty, interaction-driven traffic patterns
  • Edge compute and hybrid inference: Reducing latency by moving processing closer to the user

AI changes both user behavior and network traffic patterns, increasing pressure on uplink capacity, latency targets, and overall capacity planning.

Looking Ahead to 6G

6G discussions are accelerating, but the industry remains cautious. Standards development is underway, with many expecting completion around 2028 and commercial deployments closer to 2030. Spectrum debates are intensifying, and policy moves are starting to shape the direction of future networks, including U.S. focus on the 7 GHz band.

Even with that momentum, the business case for 6G remains under scrutiny, largely because many operators are still working through standalone 5G migration, monetization, and return-on-investment challenges. Operators in several regions are likely to treat 6G less as a hardware refresh cycle and more as a software-driven evolution focused on efficiency, sustainability, and operational improvement.

In that context, the most important 6G question may not be peak performance. The bigger question is whether 6G can align with a broader connectivity ecosystem that increasingly includes:

  • Cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud
  • Shared in-building wireless operators (“neutral hosts”) that support multiple carriers in venues like airports and stadiums
  • Private wireless networks deployed and managed by enterprises
  • Non-terrestrial networks such as satellite connectivity
  • New competition for the customer relationship beyond traditional mobile operators

Tying it All Together

The 2026 mobile market is being shaped by real infrastructure shifts. Standalone 5G is expanding, latency performance is becoming a higher priority, and early 5G Advanced deployments are building on SA foundations. Network resilience has become a public priority, and satellite connectivity is taking on a larger role that includes direct-to-device services. AI is also changing the profile of demand, pushing networks to rethink uplink planning, latency targets, and edge architecture.

Operators, regulators, and enterprise buyers are no longer judging networks only on download speeds. The conversation has expanded to include uptime, responsiveness, redundancy, and the ability to support new workloads under real-world conditions.

To explore the full discussion, including deeper analyst perspectives and more from the Ookla Analyst team, check out our recent webinar, From 5G SA to D2D and AI: What Ookla’s Analysts Say About the Year Ahead in Mobile.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

Network Evolution
5G SA
AI

About the author

Dave Andersen

Dave Andersen is a Marketing Program Manager at Ookla, where he creates enterprise and consumer content across Ookla’s brands. Dave got his start in the telco space in 2012, producing content for RootMetrics. Dave has a bachelors in marketing from Washington State University and studied creative writing in Oklahoma State’s MFA program.

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Ookla Research™ Articles
| February 6, 2026

Verizon 5G is the MVP at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX

AT&T

All three mobile operators improved their network speeds at Levi’s Stadium in preparation for the big game.

The 65,000 or more football fans heading to Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, this Sunday, will likely experience fast 5G upload and download speeds from all three of the big wireless providers. This high-visibility event is considered a prime opportunity for mobile operators to showcase their wireless networks.

But Verizon outshines its competitors in median upload, median download, and median multi-server latency at Levi’s Stadium, according to Ookla Speedtest Intelligence® data. 

The operator’s dominant position is likely a result of Verizon’s lengthy partnership with the National Football League (NFL). Verizon signed a 10-year deal with the NFL in 2021 to equip multiple stadiums with 5G and use that technology to enhance the fan experience.

Key Takeaways: 

  • Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile users at Levi’s Stadium all experienced significant increases in median download and median upload speeds from June 2025 to January 2026. 
  • Verizon tops its competitors AT&T and T-Mobile in network speeds at Levi’s Stadium. The operator’s median download speed hit 1464.38 Mbps in January 2026, which is much higher than  T-Mobile’s median download speed of 768.01 Mbps and AT&T’s median download speed of 796.61 Mbps. 
  • Verizon’s median multi-server latency is half that of T-Mobile.  In January 2026 Verizon’s median multi-server latency was just 17 milliseconds (ms) compared to AT&T’s latency of 24 ms and T-Mobile’s 34 ms of latency.

Prepping the network for the big game

Lots of work went into preparing the wireless networks at Levi’s Stadium for the big game.  In August 2024, stadium management said it upgraded its distributed antenna system (DAS) to 5G  with the help of system integrator America Fujikura Ltd (AFL). This DAS upgrade was intended to help ensure fans have connectivity throughout the stadium and was part of a big tech upgrade the stadium undertook in preparation for hosting the Super Bowl and the FIFA World Cup in 2026.

In addition to the DAS, Verizon also improved its network with additional deployments of mmWave and C-band antennas throughout the stadium and in its parking lots.  

Verizon spent billions over the last several years  to acquire  mmWave spectrum licenses. mmWave provides 5G with massive “data pipes” that enable multi-gigabit speeds and faster response times. However, the signals have a very short range so they are best if used to provide high-capacity coverage in crowded areas like stadiums and urban centers.

Verizon also said it deployed a dedicated C-band small cell in the ride-share area specifically to create a better experience for fans as they arrive and depart. 

AT&T  said it made upgrades to the Levi Stadium DAS, expanded its macro sites and small cells within the stadium, and deployed Cell on Wheels (CoW) and Cell on Light Truck (COLT), to provide temporary network coverage for high-traffic events. 

AT&T’s improvements are part of its Turbo Live program. The new paid service from AT&T provides priority cellular performance during big sporting events and concerts. AT&T is rolling this service out to 10 stadiums, including Levi’s Stadium, and will charge up to $15 for the service.

Bandwidth blitz: mobile performance rises across all three operators

Users across all three mobile operators experienced better network speeds at Levi’s Stadium during the seven-month period leading up to the Super Bowl. Verizon’s median download speed increased from 914.30  Mbps in June 2025 to 1464.38 Mbps in January 2026. T-Mobile’s median download speed increased from 132.61 Mbps in June to 768.01 Mbps in January 2026 and AT&T’s median download speed jumped from 238.56 Mbps to 796.61 Mbps. 

Upload speeds across all three operators also significantly increased during that six-month time frame, however Verizon’s median upload speed is well above its peers. Upload speed is becoming a bigger priority for game-goers as many fans want to livestream snippets of game play and half-time entertainment. 

Verizon’s median upload speed grew from 115.98 Mbps in June 2025 to 244.06 Mbps in January 2026. T-Mobile’s median upload speed increased from 18.48  Mbps in June to 101.04 Mbps in January. And AT&T’s median upload speed nearly doubled during that seven-month time period from 40.99 Mbps to 79.71 Mbps. 

It’s important to note that the network speeds consumers experience at Levi’s Stadium are optimized for the in-stadium experience and vary greatly from the network speeds that are typically experienced elsewhere. These speeds also represent the network capacity that is available  to ensure that there is enough speed available for all 65,000-plus fans that are  expected to attend  stadium events. 

 For comparison, according to Ookla’s latest Speedtest Connectivity Report,  during the second half of 2025 the median download speed across all carriers  in San Jose, California, which is just a few miles from Levi’s Stadium, was 167.57 Mbps and the median upload speed was 11.8 Mbps. 

Network Performance at Levi's Stadium, Home of Super Bowl LX
Speedtest Intelligence® | June 2025 – January 2026
A look at download, upload and latency for the three top US providers over time at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, CA.

Latency goes low 

Another area where Verizon stands apart from its peers is in median multi-server latency, which is the measure of the responsiveness of the network. Verizon’s latency is half that of T-Mobile, indicating that Verizon users will likely see a more immediate reaction when they click on a link on their phone. In January 2026 Verizon’s median multi-server latency was just 17 milliseconds (ms) compared to AT&T’s latency of 24 ms and T-Mobile’s 34 ms of latency.  

These latency measurements at Levi’s Stadium are also dramatically lower than the typical consumer experience outside the stadium. For reference, according to  Ookla’s Speedtest Connectivity report from the second half of 2025 the median multi-server latency from all providers  from nearby San Jose, California, was 41 ms. 

Throughput throwdown: comparing past Super Bowl performance 

Speedtest data from Levi’s Stadium shows all three providers have increased their network speeds and decreased median multi-server latency in the months leading up to Sunday’s game with Verizon leading its peers. 

A look back at the performance of the big-three operators at Super Bowl LIX in February 2025 at Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans shows similar results. 

On February 9, 2025 during Super Bowl LIX at Caesar’s Superdome Ookla Speedtest data clocked Verizon with a median download speed of 1190.53  Mbps compared to AT&T with a median download speed of 683.13 Mbps and T-Mobile’s median download speed of 562.95 Mbps. 

Likewise Verizon also was a leader in median upload speeds on game day with speeds of 101.38 Mbps compared to AT&T at 20.72 Mbps and T-Mobile at 21.12 Mbps. 

It’s interesting to note the difference in upload speeds for all three providers from January 2026 at Levi’s Stadium as compared to February 2025 at Caesars Superdome. 

Verizon’s median upload speed of 244.06 Mbps at Levi’s Stadium in January 2026 is more than  2x that of its median upload speed the prior year at Caesars Superdome. T-Mobile’s median upload speed of 101.04 Mbps in January at Levi’s Stadium is more than 4.5x  that of its median upload speed of 21.12 Mbps in February 2025 at Caesars Superdome. And AT&T’s median upload speed of 79.71 Mbps in January 2026 at Levi’s Stadium is more than 3x that of its median upload speed of 20.72 Mbps from February 2025 at Caesars Superdome.  

Network Performance at Caesars Superdome, Home of Super Bowl LIX
Speedtest Intelligence® | February 2025
Network performance at Super Bowl LIX at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Home of Super Bowl LIX during February 2025.

Verizon Wins the Connectivity Bowl

While all three major carriers have significantly bolstered their network performance at Levi’s Stadium in anticipation of Super Bowl LX, Verizon claims the top position. By leveraging a decade-long partnership with the NFL and aggressive deployments of mmWave and C-band technology, Verizon has developed a strong lead over its peers.
But the real winners are the fans. The  65,000 attendees at Levi’s Stadium can expect to have a strong wireless  experience on game day and throughout the rest of the year.  Levi’s Stadium is just one example of how operators and stadium owners are investing in permanent  infrastructure upgrades to ensure better connectivity at stadium events throughout the year. 

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

AT&T
T-Mobile
Verizon
Super Bowl LX

About the author

Sue Marek

Sue Marek is Ookla’s editorial director and part of the company’s analyst team. She oversees the company’s thought leadership and editorial content. Sue is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering the telecom industry and her work has appeared in Fierce Network, Light Reading, and SDxCentral. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and has moderated panels at Mobile World Las Vegas, Connect(x), the Consumer Electronics Show, the Competitive Carriers’ Show and 5G North America. Sue has a B.S. in journalism from the University of Colorado.

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Ookla Research™ Articles
| February 4, 2026

2025 Global Satellite Broadband Performance Report

Satellite

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites – led by SpaceX’s Starlink – are upending the market for space-based internet services across virtually every corner of the globe.

The satellite internet industry – which traces its origins back at least three decades – is now in a period of rapid evolution. The development of LEO satellites, which orbit much closer to the Earth’s surface than traditional geostationary (GEO) satellites, has opened the door to services for consumers that are fast enough to support most modern digital activities, ranging from video conferencing to video gaming.

Starlink, the satellite internet constellation operated by rocket company SpaceX, has helped usher in this new reality. Launched commercially just five years ago, its rapid deployment of a massive LEO satellite network has quickly translated into market progress, allowing Starlink to capture a significant global customer base. It’s a powerful case study in disruptive innovation.

Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence® data helps to capture the scope of this satellite market evolution and its effects on players around the world, as well as the scale of Starlink’s growth and the extent of its networking improvements.

Key takeaways:

  • Since 2019, SpaceX has launched a total of 10,790 Starlink satellites, helping it to gain a total of 9.2 million satellite internet customers. Starlink’s success in consumer-focused satellite internet services is clearly visible in Speedtest data. The company accounted for 97.1% of all global satellite Speedtest samples in the third quarter of 2025. Viasat came in a distant second with 1.7%. HughesNet was third globally with 1.0%.
  • Speedtest data also provides a view into where Starlink’s customers are located. The United States, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, and Canada are the company’s top five markets, according to Speedtest sample counts – with the U.S. accounting for more than one in five Starlink samples. As for network performance, Starlink median download and upload speeds have been rising in all of its major markets.
  • Starlink has also displayed clear improvements in its latency measurements in countries all over the globe. Starlink’s highest latency – 282 ms in the Marshall Islands in the third quarter of 2025 – was still less than half that of the fastest GEO satellite latency measurements.
  • In reaction to Starlink’s growth, a number of incumbent GEO satellite operators have engaged in mergers and acquisitions. Those providing services to consumers – including Viasat and HughesNet – deliver download speeds roughly three times slower than those of Starlink in most big markets. Meanwhile, new LEO satellite players like Amazon Leo are seeking to capture a share of the market.

The race to space

The story of satellite internet is rooted in the dawn of the Space Age. The development of powerful, multi-stage rockets – initially for military and later for space exploration purposes – paved the way for placing objects into Earth orbit. Following the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik in 1957, the race to space culminated in the U.S. moon landing in 1969. These events helped set the stage for the deployment of the first communication satellites.

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, a handful of companies began leveraging satellite launch technology to offer internet access to consumers in areas unserved by telecom operators on the ground. Early pioneers, including WildBlue (later acquired by Viasat) and Hughes Network Systems (HughesNet), recognized the potential in using GEO satellites to connect the unconnected.

These early GEO systems were designed to cover wide swathes of the planet with a minimal number of satellites. However, such satellites must orbit at the same speed as the Earth’s rotation, in order to maintain their position. To do so, they have to sit 22,236 miles above the Earth’s surface. This distance between GEO satellites and Earthlings makes real-time applications, such as video conferencing and online gaming, challenging. 

The GEO model dominated the satellite internet landscape for decades, mainly due to the steep costs involved with developing and launching satellites.

But things began to change roughly a decade ago. Unlike their GEO predecessors, LEO satellites orbit much closer to Earth, typically between 300 and 1,200 miles up. This speeds up connections – but it also means LEO satellite operators must launch lots of satellites. After all, at that orbit, a LEO satellite might complete a full circle around Earth in under two hours. Thus, keeping one specific location covered consistently requires multiple LEO satellites, each traveling over that location during a separate time period.

But before LEO satellites could disrupt the satellite internet market, first rockets needed to evolve.

Tracking the rise of Starlink

The ascent of Starlink’s service is directly linked to the cadence of SpaceX’s rocket launches, now almost daily. Those launches are the figurative and literal engine of Starlink’s global satellite internet expansion. Each successful launch – mainly using SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket – adds dozens of new satellites to Starlink’s constellation, which now numbers almost 10,000 total active satellites. Each additional satellite creates more network capacity and coverage, thereby supporting Starlink’s growth and expansion.

As noted by Space.com, SpaceX launched 165 orbital flights in 2025, which accounted for 85% of the United States’ total tally. It’s also twice as many as China. Starlink’s satellites accounted for 123 of SpaceX’s 165 Falcon 9 launches.

This operational rhythm is the single greatest differentiator for Starlink. As noted in its 2025 annual report, Starlink activated more than 35 new markets in 2025 while gaining 4.6 million additional customers.

Starlink Satellite Launches and Customer Growth
Company reports | 2019 – 2025

Increases in Starlink’s satellites and customers are commensurate with growth in traffic on the company’s satellite internet network. According to Cloudflare, a global cloud infrastructure provider, Starlink’s network traffic volume grew 2.3x across 2025.

Starlink itself has been working to stay ahead of that traffic. According to the company’s 2025 report, its cumulative network capacity recently passed 600 Tbps.

All of this growth can be contrasted against some of the market’s foremost traditional GEO satellite operators like Eutelsat OneWeb, SES, Viasat, and EchoStar. None has a consumer-oriented internet business that measures up to Starlink.

For example, Viasat counts around 157,000 satellite internet subscribers in the U.S., down from around 228,000 a year ago. The company does not disclose the number of customers it has outside of the U.S. And HughesNet, owned by EchoStar, counts roughly 783,000 satellite internet customers globally. That too is down from the 912,000 it counted a year ago.

Indeed, according to PCMag, HughesNet is preparing to refer its own satellite internet customers to Starlink after its parent company, EchoStar, reached a deal to sell spectrum to SpaceX.

In general, Starlink’s GEO rivals are increasingly shifting away from residential, consumer-focused internet services and toward wholesale services for business customers like governments, airplane operators, and maritime companies. For example, in its most recent earnings report, SES said its aviation business now serves 3,000 airplanes. And Viasat announced a new deal with U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command.

But here too Starlink is providing competition: Starlink recently reported it provides connections to a total of 1,400 commercial aircraft and 150,000 boats, including cruise ships, tankers, and fishing vessels.

Regardless, Starlink’s success in the consumer-focused satellite internet business is clearly visible within Ookla Speedtest data. The company accounted for 97.1% of all global Speedtest samples in the third quarter of 2025. Viasat came in next with 1.7%. HughesNet was third globally with 1%.

Speedtest samples can also serve as a proxy for Starlink’s global operations, shining a light on where the company’s 9.2 million customers are located:

Starlink's Top 20 Markets
Speedtest Intelligence | Q3 2025

To be clear, these findings provide relative guidance and scale, but not exact customer figures. Just last week, a top Starlink official said the company now counts 1 million customers in Brazil, making it Starlink’s second-largest market.

Still, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the U.S. accounts for around one out of every five Starlink samples – SpaceX is based in the U.S., and the U.S. was among the first markets where it launched Starlink services. But concerns over Starlink’s growing satellite internet dominance are now pushing other countries to pursue their own sovereign satellite internet options.

Starlink speeds rise across top markets

The performance of Starlink’s network varies around the world. In the third quarter of 2025, a diverse selection of relatively small countries recorded the globe’s fastest aggregated median Starlink download speeds.

CountryQ3 2025 Median Download Speed (Mbps)Date Starlink launched
Latvia187.30April 2022
Northern Mariana Islands186.15November 2020
New Zealand185.37April 2021
Azerbaijan182.44March 2025
Portugal180.18August 2021

A similarly diverse mix of smaller countries made up the five slowest Starlink markets.

CountryQ3 2025 Median Download Speed (Mbps)Date Starlink launched
South Sudan15.87August 2024
Madagascar23.64June 2024
Liberia26.74January 2025
Svalbard and Jan Mayen27.80February 2025
Yemen28.07September 2024

None of these countries is geographically near each other, considering they span from the middle of the African continent to the Arctic Circle. Thus, Starlink’s speed variances could be due to a variety of other factors ranging from obstructions blocking users’ receivers, or rain interfering with Starlink’s satellite signals, to Starlink’s network management efforts, and the placement of users’ Wi-Fi routers in ways that slow connections.

In general, Starlink’s top five markets show less variation in terms of speeds. They also show a general rise in overall median download and upload speeds.

Starlink Median Download and Upload Speeds in Top Markets
Speedtest Intelligence | 2021-2025

To be clear though, these speeds are aggregated across the span of months. Because Starlink is a finite, shared resource, users’ network speeds can fluctuate on a daily – or even hourly – basis. This is simply due to the dynamic interplay between the company’s network capacity supply and users’ data demands. Speedtest data highlights this situation, showing speedier U.S. connections in the middle of the night, when few users are on the network:

In any case, Starlink’s networking speeds make it an increasingly competitive option when compared with many local providers, even in developed markets. Moreover, the company’s pricing has been falling even as its speeds have been rising. For example, in the U.K. Starlink’s new £35 ($47 USD) per month plan for 100 Mbps speeds is slightly less expensive than a similar offering from BT, when setup and other costs are spread out over two years, according to the financial analysts at New Street Research. It’s slightly more expensive than 100 Mbps fixed internet pricing from the likes of YouFibre and Vodafone.

Broadly, Starlink’s global reach is noteworthy in its scope and scale. Indeed, the company launched commercial services in two new countries – South Korea and São Tomé and Príncipe – in December 2025.

Starlink Global Median Download Speeds
Speedtest Intelligence | Q3 2025

Overall, Starlink today is available in more than 155 countries and markets.

A closer look at Starlink’s latency 

Latency is the time between sending a request for internet data (clicking a link) and receiving a response (getting a web page). It’s typically measured in milliseconds (ms). High latency causes noticeable lag, making real-time applications like video calls and online gaming frustrating. Low latency provides a snappier, more immediate user experience. Fixed networks on the ground, like those running through fiber connections, typically provide latency of 10 ms or below. Mobile networks, like those using 5G, often achieve latency of 30-40 ms.

Latency in Starlink’s network is complicated by the fact that users’ connections must travel roughly 341 miles above the Earth’s surface, to where Starlink’s satellites orbit.

As the company noted last year, Starlink’s signals traveling at the speed of light usually require under 10 ms to make the round trip up from a user to a Starlink satellite and back down to a Starlink gateway site on the ground. Additional latency can be introduced by a variety of other factors, including the laser links between Starlink satellites that can route traffic around congestion. Another major factor is the geographic distance between a user and a Starlink gateway site, which directs users’ traffic onto the internet via a “point of presence,” or PoP. Each hop of this journey – including transmissions across the internet itself – can add latency to a user’s connection.

All of these factors – and more – are at play in the five Starlink markets showing the lowest latency in the third quarter of 2025: New Zealand, The Bahamas, Australia, Uruguay, and Kenya.

Starlink's Latency Shows Improvements
Speedtest Intelligence | Q3 2025

Broadly, Starlink continues to show latency improvements across the globe.

Interestingly, New Zealand has consistently ranked as the country with the lowest Starlink latency throughout 2025. That’s likely due to the multiple ground stations Starlink operates throughout the country, coupled with New Zealand’s relatively speedy, extensive, and robust fixed internet infrastructure.

But perhaps Kenya best illustrates the importance of nearby ground stations when it comes to Starlink’s latency. A number of East African countries saw a significant improvement in Starlink latency early this year, likely linked to the deployment of a new Starlink PoP in Nairobi in January 2025. Prior to that deployment, Starlink’s latency in Kenya was 289 ms. Afterward, it was just 53 ms.

“You can expect latency to continue to improve … as we prioritize software changes, build additional ground infrastructure, and launch more satellites,” Starlink wrote last year.

That focus could eventually lead the company to target the Marshall Islands, which showed the world’s highest Starlink latency measurements (282 ms) in the third quarter of 2025, according to Speedtest data. This sprawling oceanic nation comprises more than 1,000 islands and 29 coral atolls, and is located roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Not surprisingly, it struggles to support speedy internet connections, and possibly as a result it does not appear to host a Starlink ground station. The nearest Starlink ground station to the Marshall Islands appears to be located in Fiji, roughly 1,800 miles away.

Here it’s worth noting that Starlink’s highest latency measurement in the third quarter of 2025 was still less than half the best latency measurement Speedtest recorded for any GEO satellite internet provider during that period. Specifically, GEO satellite operator Kacific – which provides internet connections across the Asia-Pacific – notched a latency measurement of 599 ms in the Philippines in the third quarter of 2025. This isn’t a surprise. GEO satellites orbit roughly 65 times farther away from their users than LEO satellites. This is the primary reason GEO satellite internet services have higher latency than LEO satellite services.

Nonetheless, Starlink isn’t the only satellite internet provider investing in ground infrastructure. SES, Globalstar and AST SpaceMobile are among those satellite operators that have constructed new ground-based infrastructure. And Amazon Leo officials have said the emerging LEO satellite operator will have around 300 ground stations – or double the estimated 150 ground stations supporting Starlink.

One final element in an analysis of Starlink’s operations involves the company’s network resiliency – Starlink argues that its network can also be used as a backup in the case of emergencies. For example, Starlink said that its satellites used their laser links to maintain connectivity during the April 2025 power outage in Spain and Portugal.

Ookla’s DownDetector shows a handful of Starlink outage reports in 2025, on a global basis.

A Starlink official acknowledged the July 24, 2025, outage was due to “failure of key internal software services that operate the core network.”

Evaluating the other satellite providers

The U.S. was by far Viasat’s top market in terms of Speedtest samples, accounting for 83% of results in the third quarter of 2025. Ukraine, Brazil, Italy, and Canada were Viasat’s other top markets.

The U.S. also notched the fastest median download speeds on Viasat’s network.

Viasat's Network Performance in its Top Markets
Speedtest Intelligence | Q3 2025

EchoStar’s HughesNet showed similar results. The U.S. accounted for 72% of the company’s Speedtest samples in the third quarter, and it also notched HughesNet’s fastest median download speeds at 46.31 Mbps. Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru rounded out the company’s top five markets.

Like Viasat, HughesNet generally showed latency between 600 and 800 ms across its network in the third quarter of 2025. In the U.S., the company’s biggest market, HughesNet’s latency hasn’t shown much change during the past two years:

HughesNet U.S. Latency Remains Steady
Speedtest Intelligence | Q3 2025

A handful of regional satellite operators also registered some results among Speedtest users. For example, Kacific saw samples in the Philippines, Australia, and Pakistan in the third quarter of 2025, with speeds and latency measurements similar to those of its fellow GEO satellite operators HughesNet and Viasat. Similarly, YahClick showed some samples in the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and South Africa, with performance similar to other GEO providers. YahClick is a Middle Eastern GEO satellite operator tied to Thuraya and Space42.

Latin American satellite operator Orbith also registered activity in Argentina and Mexico in the third quarter of 2025. However, its latency measurements in Mexico (38.66 ms) could reflect its efforts to add LEO satellite options alongside its existing GEO services. Orbith’s latency results in Mexico were decidedly different from the 734.17 ms latency it posted in Argentina.

Broadly, Starlink’s effect on the traditional GEO satellite market can be viewed through ongoing consolidation in the sector. For example, the combination of GEO satellite operator Eutelsat and OneWeb, an emerging LEO satellite player, was completed in September 2023. Another major combination – Viasat’s acquisition of Inmarsat – was finalized in May 2023. And the merger of SES and Intelsat closed in July 2025.

What to expect next

While Starlink dominates the market for consumer-focused LEO satellite internet services today, that may not always be the case. Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) has been steadily building out its own LEO satellite constellation, and it is currently testing services across its roughly 180 satellites. The company hopes to launch more satellites in the coming months and years – a necessity as it works to present competition to Starlink. Amazon Leo has promised speeds ranging from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps, based on the type of receiver a customer uses.

Meanwhile, in China, Qianfan and Guowang are among those in the country planning LEO constellations that could span thousands of satellites. And in Canada, Telesat’s Lightspeed hopes to operate a few hundred LEO satellites, although Lightspeed will be sold to business customers rather than consumers.

The latest: Rocket company Blue Origin said its TeraWave satellite internet constellation will ultimately span more than 5,000 satellites, providing services up to 6 Tbps. The company said it will begin launching satellites toward the end of 2027.

Most such efforts are focused on connecting satellites to customers’ dedicated receivers. But a new dynamic in the sector – direct to device (D2D) – promises to expand the satellite internet market into smartphones. Here, companies like Lynk Global, AST SpaceMobile, Globalstar (partnered with Apple), and Starlink too are heavily investing into this evolving opportunity. According to surveys by Analysys Mason, up to 27% of respondents are willing to pay extra for these D2D services, thereby giving mobile network operators a 1% boost to their annual revenues.

However, all of these business models are contingent on satellite operators getting their satellites into orbit. Here Starlink is again the standout, considering its SpaceX parent is the world’s leading satellite launch provider. But others – including United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Blue Origin – are scaling up to meet demand.

Starlink, of course, is not standing still. The company said its new V3 satellites, set to launch during 2026, will provide 10 times the downlink and 24 times the uplink capacity of the company’s V2 satellites. And in support of those LEO satellite expansion plans, SpaceX continues to test its massive, reusable Starship rocket, which promises to deliver more satellites into orbit than any of SpaceX’s previous rockets.

This continuous, aggressive upgrade cycle underscores Starlink’s strategy to stay ahead of new market entrants by consistently increasing both the capacity and reliability of its global network. And that cycle could receive a major acceleration if SpaceX embarks on an initial public offering (IPO) during 2026.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

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Starlink

About the author

Mike Dano

Mike Dano is a Lead Industry Analyst in Ookla’s research and content team. He covers the North and South American markets, and global technology trends. Previously, Mike was a journalist covering the global telecom industry for 25 years at publications including RCR Wireless News, Fierce Network and Light Reading.

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| February 3, 2026

Understanding Where LEO Satellite Broadband Fits in State Broadband Strategies

Satellite

Satellite broadband is playing a growing role in state connectivity plans as broadband offices confront the hardest and most expensive parts of the digital divide. Modern low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks have moved far beyond the limitations of legacy systems, delivering lower latency and higher speeds in places where fiber and fixed wireless remain impractical. As public funding increasingly supports satellite deployments in remote and high-cost areas, state policymakers face a new challenge: understanding how real-world satellite performance evolves over time, how much variability exists across locations and conditions, and what that means for long-term accountability.

State broadband programs are increasingly treating satellite connectivity as a complementary tool within layered broadband plans, particularly for BEAD-eligible locations where terrain, construction costs, or timelines make terrestrial deployment unrealistic. The expanded role of satellite connectivity shifts the focus from deployment milestones to ongoing performance. Performance expectations, compliance oversight, and accountability requirements depend on evidence that extends well beyond initial deployment.

In this article, we examine how LEO satellite performance changes as networks scale, why performance variability is an inherent part of satellite systems, and why continuous, independent measurement matters for publicly funded broadband programs. For a deeper look at LEO satellite performance metrics, policy considerations, and oversight best practices, download our white paper, Orbiting the Divide: How LEO Satellites Are Transforming State Broadband.

How LEO Satellite Performance Evolves Over Time

LEO satellite broadband does not behave like a static utility. Performance changes as constellations expand, ground infrastructure grows, and network software is refined. Early performance results provide valuable insight, but those same early results generally do not represent final outcomes. For state broadband offices, that distinction matters when evaluating funded deployments and setting long-term expectations.

Ookla® Speedtest Intelligence data illustrates how quickly real-world performance can improve as LEO networks scale. For example, between Q3 2022 and Q1 2025, U.S. Starlink median download speeds nearly doubled from 53.95 Mbps to 104.71 Mbps. More recent data indicates that these gains have continued as LEO networks expand. Speedtest Intelligence data shows that Starlink’s median U.S. fixed download speeds increased from approximately 78 Mbps in early 2024 to 128 Mbps by December 2025.

Starlink’s performance gains reflect continued network expansion rather than one-time upgrades. As satellites are added and traffic is distributed across a larger system, users can experience measurable improvements in speed and latency. Network operators also continue to refine routing, beam management, and capacity allocation, which further influences real-world results. Several factors drive these changes over time:

  • Constellation expansion: Additional satellites increase total capacity and reduce localized congestion, improving median speeds and consistency in high-demand areas.
  • Software and traffic optimization: Updates to routing logic and beam management improve efficiency without requiring changes to user equipment.
  • Ground infrastructure growth: New gateways and backhaul investments shorten data paths and reduce latency, particularly in remote regions.
  • Regional maturation: Areas that initially underperform can improve as satellite density and supporting infrastructure catch up with demand.

For state broadband programs, satellite performance should be treated as a moving target rather than a fixed benchmark. Early performance metrics provide useful context, but effective oversight requires tracking how performance changes as networks mature over time and as usage increases.

Performance Variability Is Built Into Satellite Networks

Performance variability is not a flaw in satellite broadband; it is a defining characteristic of how shared, space-based networks operate. Unlike terrestrial infrastructure, satellite performance depends on orbital dynamics, network load, geographic conditions, and environmental factors that change continuously. For policymakers, this reality complicates one-time testing and static performance assumptions.

Real-world satellite performance can differ meaningfully by location, time of day, and local demand. A household in a low-density rural area may experience higher speeds than a household closer to a dense population center during peak usage. Weather, foliage, terrain, and line-of-sight conditions can also affect outcomes, particularly in forested or mountainous regions. Several common factors contribute to this variability:

  • Network load: Concentrated demand in specific areas can temporarily reduce speeds during peak usage periods.
  • Geographic conditions: Terrain, vegetation, and elevation affect signal quality and consistency.
  • Environmental effects: Weather and seasonal changes can influence performance, especially in rural and heavily forested locations.
  • Local adoption patterns: Rapid increases in user density can introduce short-term congestion until capacity scales to match demand.

Performance variability makes satellite broadband difficult to evaluate through isolated tests or installation checks. Indeed, a single measurement captures a moment in time, not the range of conditions users experience. For publicly funded deployments, that limitation underscores the importance of ongoing, independent performance testing rather than one-time snapshots.

Why Satellite Performance Monitoring Matters for Public Funding Oversight

As broadband programs move from awarding grants to enforcing performance commitments, oversight requirements continue to expand. State broadband offices are increasingly responsible for long-term performance accountability—not just deployment progress. Traditional oversight tools such as construction verification and acceptance testing confirm that service exists, but they do not show whether service continues to meet required performance standards over time.

Satellite networks evolve continuously, and individual satellites have finite operational lifespans that require ongoing replacement and optimization. Environmental conditions and local demand also change throughout the life of a funded project. These realities raise important oversight questions for state broadband offices, including:

  • Compliance: Whether funded networks continue to meet required speed and latency thresholds over time.
  • Scaling: How performance changes as adoption increases and demand grows.
  • Risk signals: Where persistent underperformance may indicate capacity constraints or coverage gaps.
  • Performance comparisons: How satellite performance compares with terrestrial options across the same geographies and time periods.

Independent, third-party performance data provides a way to address these questions at scale. Large, crowdsourced datasets—like those provided by Ookla—capture real-world user experience across locations and over time, revealing trends that provider-reported metrics and one-time tests cannot. When analyzed consistently, this data supports establishing baselines, monitoring trends, and identifying performance risks early.

For publicly funded satellite deployments, continuous measurement is not a compliance burden. Rather, it’s the mechanism that protects public investment and ensures funded networks deliver durable, equitable service throughout their operational life.

Tying it all together

LEO satellite broadband now plays a meaningful role in state broadband strategies, particularly in areas where terrestrial deployment remains cost-prohibitive or impractical. Performance has improved significantly as constellations scale, but satellite networks remain dynamic systems with inherent variability that complicates one-time testing and fixed assumptions.

For state broadband offices, long-term success depends on understanding how satellite performance evolves, accounting for variability across locations and conditions, and maintaining independent visibility into real-world outcomes over time. Continuous performance monitoring provides the evidence needed to confirm compliance, identify emerging risks, and ensure public funding delivers lasting connectivity.

For a deeper look at real-world satellite performance data, policy frameworks, and oversight best practices, download our full white paper, Orbiting the Divide: How LEO Satellites Are Transforming State Broadband. The white paper includes additional performance charts, a look at speed and latency over time, performance differences across geographies, and real-world examples showing how congestion and demand can affect outcomes.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

Satellite

About the author

Dave Andersen

Dave Andersen is a Marketing Program Manager at Ookla, where he creates enterprise and consumer content across Ookla’s brands. Dave got his start in the telco space in 2012, producing content for RootMetrics. Dave has a bachelors in marketing from Washington State University and studied creative writing in Oklahoma State’s MFA program.

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| February 5, 2026

Operators Rally to Deliver Grand Slam 5G Performance During the Australian Open

The 2026 Australian Open reset global records for Grand Slam attendance, packing 1.36 million fans into Melbourne Park’s three stadiums and over 35 courts between Jan. 12 and Feb 1. This record-breaking turnout, fueled by 220,000 “Opening Week” visitors within the 27-hectare venue, created a stress test for mobile infrastructure. This report examines the performance of Australia’s 5G networks under heavy demand during the tournament period, using crowdsourced performance metrics and background signal scan data collected from the pre-event buildup, starting Jan. 1, through the tournament’s conclusion.

Key takeaways

  • Optus led 5G coverage at the 2026 Australian Open with an average signal strength of -79 dBm. While Telstra and Vodafone maintained reliable connectivity with identical average signal strengths of -84 dBm, Optus provided a higher performance buffer for fans navigating the data-heavy area. 
  • Strategic spectrum allocation proved decisive. Optus and Telstra both exceeded median download speed of 220 Mbps, with speeds of 280.35 Mbps and 224.97 Mbps, respectively. This increase was largely attributable to C-Band usage, which accounted for approximately half of their connection samples in Melbourne. Vodafone trailed at 57.47 Mbps, as over half of its connections sat on lower mid-band and only 17.5% on C-band, limiting throughput during peak demand.

Optus reported a stronger 5G Signal Strength at the Australian Open 2026

Using data from Speedtest Insights™, collected from Jan. 1 to Feb. 1, 2026, we analyzed the 5G experience of Australian Open visitors by measuring the average Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ). RSRP indicates the signal strength received by a mobile device. An RSRP above -80 dBm signifies excellent coverage. Values between -80 dBm and -90 dBm reflect good coverage, while those from -90 dBm to -100 dBm are considered fair. Anything below this range may result in slower downloads and network drops. RSRQ assesses the quality of the received reference signal. A value of -10 dB or higher denotes excellent network quality, whereas -10 dB to -15 dB indicates good quality. Values below -15 dB suggest poor performance or no signal.

The plots below compare 5G signal strength across mobile operators, aggregated from January 1st through the final day of the event on February 1st. Optus had good to excellent 5G coverage in most locations within Melbourne Park, with signal strength at -90 dBm or stronger. In contrast, Telstra and Vodafone had significantly weaker 5G signal strength, with a larger portion at -90 dBm or lower.

Map of 5G Signal Strength (dBm) Plot, Melbourne Park - Telstra
Map of 5G Signal Strength (dBm) Plot, Melbourne Park - Vodafone

All three operators reported a reasonable average 5G signal strength within Melbourne Park throughout the tournament. Optus established a clear lead with an average 5G RSRP of -79 dBm. This 5 dB advantage over its rivals corresponds to approximately triple the received signal power, providing users with a greater buffer against interference. Meanwhile, Telstra and Vodafone recorded identical averages of -84 dBm. Although trailing Optus, this signal level remains well within the “good” range for 5G connectivity, indicating a robust baseline that can deliver a seamless user experience despite heavy network load.

Mobile Operators 5G Signal Strength (dBm), Melbourne Park
Source: Speedtest Insights™ | Jan. 1 – Feb. 1, 2026

An analysis of average 5G signal quality (RSRQ) reveals that Optus and Vodafone achieved similar results, with both averaging -11 dB. For Vodafone, achieving parity with the leader despite lower signal strength values indicates highly effective interference mitigation. Telstra recorded a slightly lower average of -12 dB.

Mobile Operators 5G Signal Quality (dB), Melbourne Park
Source: Speedtest Insights™ | Jan. 1 – Feb. 1, 2026

5G spectrum depth is the key performance differentiator at this year’s Australian Grand Slam 

Analysis of Speedtest Intelligence® data shows both Optus and Telstra 5G networks achieved median download speeds exceeding 220 Mbps during the reported period. Optus delivered the highest median download speed at Melbourne Park this year, recording 280.35 Mbps—approximately 25% faster than Telstra—and led upload performance at 74.43 Mbps. Telstra recorded a median download speed of 224.97 Mbps, indicating reliable throughput for high-demand applications. In contrast, Vodafone recorded a median download speed of 57.47 Mbps, significantly lower than that of the market leaders.

Mobile Operator 5G Performance (Mbps), Melbourne Park
Speedtest Intelligence® | Jan. 1 – Feb. 1, 2026

These performance disparities correlate directly with 5G spectrum utilization strategies used by each operator. Analysis of Speedtest data collected across Melbourne during the same period provides insight into the spectrum bands used by operators. Both Telstra and Optus heavily leveraged C-band frequencies, with 52.3% and 49.9% of their samples from the C-band, respectively. Optus also utilized its lower mid-band more than Telstra. This prioritization of midband frequencies provided the bandwidth needed to sustain speeds above 280 Mbps during the Grand Slam event. Conversely, Vodafone relied primarily on lower mid-band spectrum, which accounted for 53.5% of its connections, compared with just 17.5% on C-Band. By utilizing these lower mid-band channels, Vodafone likely maintained better connectivity consistency but lacked the spectral capacity to match the C-Band-driven throughput of its competitors.

5G Spectrum Band Distribution in the City of Melbourne
Speedtest Intelligence® | Jan. 1 – Feb. 1, 2026

The 2026 Australian Open served as a proving ground for 5G infrastructure, confirming that spectrum capacity is a key driver of performance in high-density environments. As digital demands at major sporting events continue to escalate, the ability to leverage these mid-band frequencies will remain the critical differentiator between mere coverage and true network leadership.

Please contact us for more details on how Ookla can help provide actionable insights into network performance and resilience.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

About the author

Affandy Johan

Affandy Johan is the Industry Analyst at Ookla Research. He utilizes Ookla's data to develop insightful analyses covering various factors and aspects impacting the market. Affandy has extensive experience in the telecom industry, having worked for major vendors and operators in the Asia Pacific region.

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Ookla Research™ Articles
| February 3, 2026

The Benchmark Network: How Umniah by Beyon Built Jordan’s Best Mobile Network with Ookla Data [Case Study]

Global Speeds

Delivering a consistently higher-quality mobile experience is central to Umniah by Beyons strategy as one of Jordan’s leading telecom operators, providing both mobile and fixed services to customers across the country. As customers increasingly rely on connectivity for everything from streaming and gaming to navigation, mobile payments, online learning, and remote work, expectations for speed, stability, and reliability continue to rise wherever they go, whether in dense urban districts or rural communities. The transition to 5G has further raised the bar, introducing new performance demands and a greater need for precision in how networks are planned, monitored, and optimized, raising the stakes for operators to deliver consistent performance in real-world environments.

In this environment, network leadership can no longer be sustained through traditional monitoring or periodic testing alone. Instead, leadership must be achieved through the continuous management of real-world customer experience measured at scale.

The Best Mobile Network award is determined using Ookla’s independent and statistically rigorous methodology, based on millions of real-world network performance measurements collected nationwide from everyday consumer devices used by real customers. These measurements include consumer-initiated Speedtest® data alongside other independently collected mobile usage signals, providing a comprehensive view of actual customer experience across apps, locations, and usage scenarios. The award reflects real-world performance through a composite score derived from median download and upload speeds, latency, and consistency metrics, rather than laboratory simulations or drive-test-only data.

To respond effectively to rising customer expectations and strengthen its competitive position, Umniah partnered with Ookla® to incorporate real-time, independently collected, crowdsourced intelligence into its network operations, providing continuous visibility into how customers experience the network in everyday conditions across Jordan. 

Insights from Ookla solutions, including  Speedtest Insights™, Speedtest Intelligence®, Cell Analytics™ and Consumer QoE™, provide Umniah with a continuously updated view of real-world user experience across Jordan. 

This real-time intelligence enables faster detection and troubleshooting of issues, sharper prioritization of network investments, and ongoing validation of improvements, while strengthening the overall 5G experience, helping ensure that enhancements translate into tangible benefits for customers. 

These insights are derived from a statistically significant volume of measurements collected during Q3–Q4 2025. Ookla applies robust statistical validation techniques, including outlier removal and confidence checks, to ensure accuracy, fairness, and comparability across operators.

As a result of this data-driven approach, Umniah won the Speedtest Award™ for Best Mobile Network for Q3–Q4 2025.

Situation

Mobile customers rely on connectivity across many different locations and usage settings every day, at home, work, and across public areas where performance can vary. Traditional measurement methods, such as periodic drive tests or one-time data collections, provide only limited snapshots of these day-to-day conditions and do not provide the continuous visibility Umniah needed to make faster, more informed decisions about the network that ultimately enhance the customer experience.

Umniah wanted a more agile, data-driven model that supported real-time verification of performance, faster operational adjustments, and ongoing optimization. The company saw clear limitations in legacy collection practices and aimed to build a dynamic process that would strengthen decision-making across both network engineering and broader business operations.

Download the full case study

Check out our full case study to find out how Umniah has adopted a data-driven and agile network measurement strategy with crowdsourced data for smarter decision-making.

Download case study

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

Global Speeds

About the author

Ookla

Ookla® is a global leader in connectivity intelligence that provides consumers, businesses, and other organizations with data-driven insights to improve networks and connected experiences.

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Ookla Research™ Articles
| February 8, 2026

North Africa Countries Lead MEA Gains in Speedtest Global Index in 2025

The position of most countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) on Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index™ had changed little in 2025. However, a few markets saw significant improvements in fixed or mobile download speeds, notably in Northern African countries, Bahrain, and Oman, which lifted their ranking. This article examines the most significant changes in country rankings in MEA on the Index and analyzes the underlying regulatory and operational factors that drove these shifts.

Key Takeaways

  • The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries maintained their pole position in MEA. The UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman are the consistent winners, leading the MEA region in both fixed and mobile network performance, with most in the top-10 globally for mobile throughout 2025. South Africa is the consistent leader in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) sub-region and is one of only three SSA countries in the global top-100 list for mobile in Q4 2025.
  • While the position of most MEA countries changed only slightly on the Index, a few saw significant jumps. For example, Morocco recorded the largest move, jumping 22 places on the mobile Index, followed by Algeria and Tunisia, as these countries launched 5G in 2025. Oman also moved up five places to 18th, thanks to network investment, network refarming, and the activation of new carriers. On the fixed side, Algeria saw the largest jump, moving up 28 places, followed by Mauritania, which rose 24 places. Bahrain and Morocco improved by 16 and 11 places, respectively.
  • 5G and the modernization and expansion of existing infrastructure were the main levers for improving a country’s ranking in the MEA region. The North African sub-region, particularly, was a confluence of two events that shaped its performance in 2025: the launch of 5G and the continued expansion of fiber and accelerated adoption. In Bahrain, raising the minimum speed resulted in an increase in fixed median download speed.
  • While urban concentration creates favorable conditions to deliver higher download speeds, it does not generally determine mobile network performance. Urbanization is necessary but not sufficient for higher mobile download speeds. It explains the upper bound of performance, but not the actual outcome for many countries. Structural elements like the pace of network modernization, investment capacity, spectrum access timeline, political stability, and market conditions often override demographic factors.

The two charts below show the monthly change in the ranking of the top 20 MEA countries in the Speedtest Global Index for mobile and fixed, as well as corresponding rolling quarter median download speeds in Mbps.


Chart of Monthly MEA Regional Ranking in Speedtest Global Index™ for Mobile

Chart of Monthly MEA Regional Ranking in Speedtest Global Index™ for Fixed

The GCC leads in terms of fixed and mobile network performance, followed by the Levant and North Africa sub-regions

The MEA region (including Türkiye) is characterized by a high contrast in geographical landmass, population density, and disposable income levels. These factors influence the level of investments in infrastructure and the level of adoption of telecom services, which in turn affect network performance. We can distinguish four sub-regions in MEA:

  • Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. These are the most advanced and mature fixed and mobile markets in the region, characterized by high spending power, a high smartphone penetration level, and government-led digitalization mandates.
  • The Levant, which includes countries such as Jordan, Iraq, and Türkiye. A mixed-maturity sub-region with a strong 4G network and emerging 5G services. Türkiye acts as a sophisticated anchor market similar to Europe, while other markets face geopolitical and economic volatility that hampers consistent growth.
  • North Africa, which includes Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. Generally, a strict regulatory environment with government-backed incumbents often dominates the markets, with low to moderate ARPU. Infrastructure in transition phase migrating from 4G to 5G in mobile and DSL to fiber in fixed.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. The sub-region relies mostly on mobile infrastructure, with a huge usage gap between urban and rural areas. Infrastructure reliability is plagued by electricity shortages. 

Despite economic and geopolitical headwinds in some parts of the MEA region, it remains dynamic and appealing to telecom groups thanks to a young and rapidly growing population and demand for digital and financial services powered by telecom infrastructure. As a result, all sub-regions are pushing ahead with investments and regulatory initiatives to expand current network coverage, upgrade network technologies, and encourage competition to keep telecom services affordable. These initiatives helped most countries to maintain a consistent position on Ookla’s Global Speedtest Index throughout 2025. However, a few saw their ranking decline, and fewer countries saw their ranking significantly improve.

Most Gulf countries maintained their top-10 positions in mobile throughout 2025, except Oman, which ranked 18th. However, it recorded the largest move in this sub-region, moving five places between January and December 2025, thanks to accelerated investments from the operators, activation of new carriers, and the refarming of 3G spectrum for 5G. The three-month moving median download speed between October and December 2025 ranged from 165.07 Mbps for Oman to 691.76 Mbps for the U.A.E. in Q4 2025. The upgrading of 5G infrastructure to 5G SA and 5G Advanced, and the use of multi-carrier aggregation, significantly boost throughput.

On the fixed side, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar ranked 2nd, 25th, and 38th globally, respectively, in December 2025, and in the top-3 across MEA. Bahrain jumped 16 places during the year as a result of government regulation pushing ISPs to increase minimum speeds (from 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps in March 2025), coupled with ISP efforts to make faster plans more affordable.

Country Ranking in Speedest Global Index, GCC
Source: Speedtest Intelligence® | January – December 2025

In the Levant region, most countries that made it to the top 100 of the Index saw their position shift downward, except for Iraq, which moved up five places to 66th by the end of 2025, and Syria, which moved to the 99th (up three places), after recording a close to 9 Mbps increase in rolling quarter median download speed. Türkiye leads this sub-region, taking the 61st position globally with a median download speed of 66.91 Mbps. We expect its rank (and median download speed) to improve in 2026 as the country plans to introduce 5G services in April 2026, following the spectrum auctions held in October 2025. Jordan is the only market among the ranked countries in this sub-region with commercial 5G (since 2023); despite that, it ranked lower than at the beginning of 2025, with its median download speed dropping to 43 Mbps.

However, Jordan leads the sub-region in fixed broadband performance, ranking 34th globally with a median download speed of 198.54 Mbps in December 2025. The success stems from significant fiber-optic network deployment and uptake. According to the telecom regulator, TRC, the country had 637,408 active fiber lines in Q3 2025, representing 77% of all fixed broadband subscribers, and 66.4% of them were on plans offering speeds of 200 Mbps or higher. Türkiye improved its position globally by two places but remains far behind Jordan at 99th. The rest of the Levantine countries rank even lower.

Country Ranking in Speedest Global Index, Levant
Source: Speedtest Intelligence® | January – December 2025

Four of the five North African countries launched 5G services in 2025. Tunisia and Egypt were the first to enter the 5G foray in February and June 2025, respectively. However, 5G had a varying impact on national performance and global ranking. Tunisia had a good start to the year, peaking at 47th position in April 2025, before dropping to 72nd in December (but still moving 11 places up in the year), with a median download speed trending down to 57.3 Mbps. This suggests that the infrastructure has not kept up with the growing demand. On the other hand, Egypt, which launched 5G in June, only jumped three places to 83rd in December 2025 (down from its peak of 68th in June 2025), with a median download speed of 44.51 Mbps, only slightly higher than pre-5G times. The limited increase in speed could be the result of operators using only 20 to 30 MHz bandwidth in the 2.6 GHz band, shared between 4G and 5G, limiting its capacity to serve an increasing number of 5G users.

Morocco and Algeria were the last to introduce 5G in November and December 2025, respectively. The recency of the 5G launch, coupled with strong consumer interest in the new technology, led to an increase in higher-speed 5G test samples collected over the past two months, which in turn contributed to the uplift in the median download speed. For example, Morocco’s rank jumped in the mobile Speedtest Global Index to 39th, up 22 places since the beginning of 2025, regaining its leading position in North Africa. Algeria also saw its position significantly improve, rising 11 places to 78th, and moving to third position in the sub-region, ahead of Egypt. We expect Algeria and Morocco to fall back a few places in 2026 due to the decrease in the share of 5G tests, reducing their impact on the median download speed. Finally, Libya trails the sub-region, dropping four places in 2025.

On the fixed side, fiber deployments accelerated in 2024 and 2025, with Egypt still leading in broadband performance, dropping one place on the Global Speedtest Index at the end of 2025. Algeria jumped 28 places to the 109th position, and Morocco by 11 places to the 105th. They achieved a median download speed of 53.62 Mbps and 56.27 Mbps, respectively, in Q4 2025. 

Country Ranking in Speedest Global Index, North Africa
Source: Speedtest Intelligence® | January – December 2025

Sub-Saharan African countries lag behind leading countries in MEA, except for South Africa

According to the mobile Speedtest Global Index, only three countries made it to the top-100 list in December 2025: South Africa (64th), Kenya (80th), and Nigeria (85th). The positions of South Africa and Nigeria dropped five and seven places, respectively, in 2025, with median download speeds of 65.7 Mbps and 44.14 Mbps by the end of the year. Kenya ranked 80th, recording a median download speed of 45.37 Mbps.

On the fixed side, the picture is more diversified, reflecting the great progress made by SSA in terms of fiber deployment and adoption. Côte d’Ivoire is the highest-ranking country in SSA, taking the 103rd position in December 2025, with a median download speed of 58.17 Mbps. Omdia estimates that 10% to 15% of all country premises are covered with FTTP. While this is lower than other countries such as Senegal, South Africa, and Kenya, it outperformed them in median download speed. This could be because the user base is concentrated on relatively higher‑speed connections. In fact, Orange, the leading ISP, offers entry-level fixed broadband packages starting at 50 Mbps.

Six other countries in SSA are in the top-120, with Mauritania recording the largest jump in 2025, moving 24 places to the 106th with a median download speed of 55.66 Mbps, just below Morocco. The country expanded its backbone, adding 5,500 km of fiber, and planning to lay a total of 8,000 kilometers of additional lines by 2025 and beyond as part of the Mauritanian government’s Digital Agenda 2022-2025. Interestingly, South Africa is the only country in the region where wholesale-only FTTP networks are common.

Country Ranking in Speedest Global Index, Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Speedtest Intelligence® | January – December 2025

Saudi Arabia achieved a strong standing among G20 nations, whereas both Türkiye and South Africa lagged behind

The G20 groups major economies across 19 countries and the European Union, and they represent nearly 80% of the global GDP. Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Türkiye are the only MEA countries that are part of this group, but they exhibit significant differences.

Saudi Arabia ranked 9th globally in December 2025 in mobile, which corresponds to the third position among G20 countries, ahead of the U.S.A., China, Australia, Canada, and Japan, and European countries. On the other hand, Türkiye sits at the 13th position ahead of Japan, before even launching 5G. Despite having 5G since 2021, South Africa is ranked slightly lower at 15th, suggesting there is room for improvement. On the fixed side, Saudi Arabia stands at 10th place among G20 nations. In comparison, Türkiye and South Africa rank in the bottom quarter of G20 at 16th and 18th, highlighting challenges in fixed internet infrastructure and fiber adoption.

Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Türkiye Rankings in Speedest Global Index Compared to Rest of G20
Source: Speedtest Intelligence® | December 2025

5G launch and fiber expansion are the most significant levers for improving countries’ mobile and fixed ranking in MEA

Improvement in fixed and mobile network performance can result from several factors and initiatives led by telecom operators and supported by regulators. These can be categorized into seven groups, as shown in the table below, with examples relevant to the fixed and mobile markets.

List of Levers, actors, fixed, and mobile

Reviewing the biggest movers across MEA in 2025, we can attribute their shifts in the Index to the different drivers shown above. It is clear that a 5G launch was the main driver for improvement in mobile network performance, especially in North Africa. On the fixed side, it is a combination of network expansion, migrating customers to more modern technologies, and increasing entry-level download speed.

List of countries and mobile rank shifts

Urbanization level contributes to mobile performance improvement, but it is not the sole determinant

Some MEA countries, particularly in the Gulf region, enjoy a very high level of urbanization, which facilitates the deployment of infrastructure, allows shorter cell distances, and higher fiber penetration, which contribute to strong network performance. However, urbanization alone does not determine mobile network performance. Several countries with a high (or relatively high) share of urban population exhibit lower-than-expected median download speed, according to data from Speedtest Intelligence (for network performance) and the World Bank (for urban population). In some cases, dense cities can even exacerbate performance issues if network expansion does not keep pace with traffic growth.

The chart below shows the median download speed among the top MEA countries in the Speedtest Global Index in Q4 2025 by share of urban population. While Gulf countries have a very high level of urbanization (>80%), which supports better mobile performance, the correlation breaks down for several countries. 

Nations such as Türkiye, Jordan, and Lebanon cluster closely in terms of urban population share, yet differ markedly in median download speeds. This divergence points to structural factors beyond demographics, including the pace of network modernization, such as the delayed introduction of 5G. 

Some countries are outliers where median download speeds are substantially lower than urbanization would suggest, and these reflect broader market and country conditions. For example, the poor performance in Lebanon, Libya, and Syria is likely the result of political instability and limited investment appetite (or capacity) in these countries, but also shows the potential for speed uplift given the relatively high level of urbanization.

On the other hand, Egypt and Nigeria secured a place in the leaderboard despite being the most populous nations in the region with relatively low levels of urbanization. The launch of 5G in 2025 and 2022, respectively, and the improvement in 4G coverage and capacity helped to boost their median download speed.

chart of median mobile download sheep by level of urbanization, top MEA countries in Speedtest Global Index

A high level of urbanization appears to help the countries that already have a developed infrastructure and a mature mobile market to unlock the next level of performance at a lower cost and faster than less urbanized countries. In most cases, mobile performance is driven by a complex interplay of factors. Structural elements like the pace of network modernization, investment capacity, political stability, and market conditions often override demographic factors. The delay in the spectrum auction can act as a barrier to 5G deployment, as we saw across Africa and Europe in recent years. That is why timely spectrum allocation and proactive policies should be a priority for other countries in MEA that are considering jumping on the 5G wagon to improve their network performance.

In conclusion, Ookla Speedtest Global Index data for 2025 reveals a dynamic landscape in MEA’s mobile and fixed network performance. While Gulf nations continue to dominate in terms of speed and infrastructure, significant progress was observed in North Africa, driven primarily by the rollout of 5G technology and the expansion of fiber optic networks. It shows that the combination of operators’ continued investment in network modernization, with regulatory initiatives, such as auctioning 5G licenses, mandating legacy network switch off, and raising minimum download speed on fixed, are key levers for improving connectivity across the region.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

About the author

Karim Yaici

Karim Yaici is the Lead Industry Analyst at Ookla covering the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. Previously, he directed Analysys Mason's MEA research program, where he was responsible for telecoms forecasts, market reports, consumer surveys, and custom research.

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| February 2, 2026

Ookla and BigPanda Partner to Bring External Observability to Enterprise IT Teams

Downdetector

Ookla® has formed a strategic partnership with BigPanda, a leading provider of agentic IT operations solutions, integrating Downdetector®’s real-time outage intelligence into BigPanda AI Incident Assistant. This partnership extends visibility beyond traditional internal monitoring, allowing IT teams to detect disruptions in external cloud platforms, SaaS providers, and ISPs that standard tools often miss.

The combination of Downdetector’s crowdsourced signals and BigPanda’s AI-powered investigation helps organizations understand whether an issue originates within internal systems or stems from a provider-side outage. Faster clarity leads to quicker root-cause identification, fewer unnecessary bridge calls, and more confident incident resolution.

“Our internal dashboards looked green, but the external signals told a different story,” said an engineering leader at a major global gaming studio. “Downdetector’s data triggered the investigation that helped us catch the issue before it escalated. Without that outside-in visibility, we would have been blind.”

Enterprise IT teams gain several advantages from the combined capabilities of BigPanda and Downdetector:

  • Avoid unnecessary bridge calls by ruling out internal code or infrastructure issues early
  • Reduce Mean Time to Innocence when an outage originates with a third-party provider
  • Accelerate root-cause analysis by surfacing provider-side factors at the start of an investigation
  • Communicate proactively with end users when the source of instability is a third-party outage

The integrated solution is available immediately for enterprises using BigPanda AI Incident Assistant with a Downdetector license.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

Downdetector

About the author

Dave Andersen

Dave Andersen is a Marketing Program Manager at Ookla, where he creates enterprise and consumer content across Ookla’s brands. Dave got his start in the telco space in 2012, producing content for RootMetrics. Dave has a bachelors in marketing from Washington State University and studied creative writing in Oklahoma State’s MFA program.

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Ookla Research™ Articles
| January 26, 2026

Building a Global Benchmark: Introducing the WBA Wi-Fi Design Standard

Wi-Fi 7

Wi-Fi is now the default utility for connectivity in our homes, offices, factories, public spaces, and industrial environments. Yet, despite the ubiquity of connectivity, the end-user experience remains surprisingly inconsistent. We’ve all experienced the frustration of coverage gaps, “sticky” clients, or sudden drops in performance, even when using modern networks and devices.

As Wi-Fi deployments increasingly incorporate the 6 GHz spectrum and evolve toward Wi-Fi 7, network design and operation have grown more complex. Inconsistent deployments across operators and vendors are leading to fragmented design and performance outcomes that affect everyone—from the network engineer to the end-user.

As an industry leader with a commitment to measure, understand, and help improve connected experiences, Ookla proposed the formation of a Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA)-led working group to develop a Wi-Fi Design Standard, helping bridge a critical gap between theoretical Wi-Fi standards and the realities of real-world deployment and user experience.

While standards bodies like the IEEE define the protocols (e.g., 802.11ax/be) and the Wi-Fi Alliance certifies interoperability, until now there has been no globally recognized standard for both the design and deployment of these networks. This void has led to the fragmentation described above, where inconsistent design practices result in unpredictable performance, even on the latest hardware.

That gap is what the WBA Wi-Fi Design Standard is intended to address. The initiative provides the industry with a vendor-neutral framework that defines what “good” connectivity looks like—quantifiable through rigorous KPIs and metrics. This work represents a natural evolution of Ookla’s mission to measure and improve global connectivity, building on the foundations established through Speedtest Certified™ and the WBA’s previous deployment guidelines.

The Challenge: Moving Beyond Fragmentation

While Wi-Fi technology itself is standardized, the way it is deployed is not. In practice, “fragmentation” shows up as different design assumptions, planning methods, and performance targets across operators, vendors, and industry verticals. As a result, similar environments can be built and evaluated in very different ways, with inconsistent outcomes.

This lack of uniformity creates significant challenges:

  • Operators struggle to deliver predictable quality assurance.
  • Enterprises face increasing complexity in dense environments.
  • End-users experience inconsistent performance, even with high-end devices.

At the same time, several industry trends are accelerating the need for standardization. The adoption of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, the convergence of fixed and mobile architectures, the shift toward QoE-driven operations, and the growth of managed Wi-Fi services all demand more consistent, repeatable design and validation practices. These trends expose a clear opportunity for a global Wi-Fi Design Standard that unifies best practices, defines measurable KPIs, and supports reliable, multi-vendor deployments at scale.

Our Objective: A Unified Global Standard

The WBA Wi-Fi Design Standard project, led by Ookla, is focused on defining a clear, vendor-neutral framework for how Wi-Fi networks should be planned, deployed, and evaluated in real-world environments.

The goal is not to replace existing protocol standards, but to complement them by establishing consistent design and validation expectations that help translate theoretical capability into predictable, real-world performance.

Building on the WBA’s earlier deployment guidelines, this initiative evolves those principles into a formal, measurable standard aligned with modern Wi-Fi 6, 6E, and Wi-Fi 7 networks. By grounding design guidance in practical, testable outcomes, the standard aims to give the industry a shared reference for how networks should be designed and assessed across different environments and use cases, not just how they perform in theory or under ideal conditions.

Key areas of focus will include:

  •  End-to-End Coverage: Addressing every phase from site survey, to design, installation, and operation.
  • Performance Metrics: Defining minimum and relevant KPIs for RF performance, backhaul capacity, and Quality of Experience (QoE) including latency, jitter, throughput, roaming, and ISP backhaul capacity.
  • Vertical Specific Models: Tailoring guidance for diverse environments such as residential, enterprise, public venues, industrial IoT, and smart campuses.
  • RF & Capacity Planning: Guidelines for Access Point (AP) and antenna placement, density, and interference management to ensure consistent coverage.
  • Next-Gen Configuration: Offers critical guidance on 6 GHz spectrum adoption, multi-band steering strategies, and roaming configurations to prevent device disconnects.
  • Security Enforcement: Best practices for deploying WPA3 and handling Transition Modes to ensure security doesn’t come at the cost of connectivity.

Why a Common Wi-Fi Design Standard Matters

This project is not about producing another static document; it’s about creating a shared design framework the industry can rely on when planning, deploying, and validating Wi-Fi networks. While it is easy to define RF design targets or collect large volumes of performance metrics, it is far more difficult to align on which design decisions and KPIs truly influence real-world user experience.

“Wi-Fi design has long been treated as an art rather than a discipline, driven by individual experience and trial-and-error. That approach no longer scales. As part of the WBA’s mission to improve global broadband experiences through collaboration and shared standards, a globally aligned Wi-Fi design standard is essential to move beyond fragmentation and enable multiple stakeholders to engage. This will help deliver consistent, measurable performance, predictable Quality of Experience, and deployments that meet real-world operational and business requirements.” – Bruno Tomás, CTO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA)

A common framework helps reduce guesswork, improve consistency, and set clearer expectations across roles and environments. Those benefits show up in different ways across the Wi-Fi ecosystem.

For Network Designers and Surveyors:

  • Eliminate Guesswork: By establishing industry-aligned principles for planning and site surveys, designers can rely on a proven framework rather than subjective “rules of thumb.”
  • Standardized Validation: Surveyors will have a clear set of global metrics to test against, making it easier to validate designs and prove that a network meets performance expectations.

For Operators and Managed Service Providers (MSPs):

  • Enforceable SLAs: Operators can embed this guideline into Request for Proposals (RFPs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs), ensuring that vendors and integrators deliver a network that meets specific, measurable quality benchmarks.
  • Predictable Quality: An industry-aligned approach reduces variability in deployments, helping MSPs deliver consistent reliability across different customer sites.

For Infrastructure Vendors:

  • Product Alignment: Vendors can align their tools and AP features with a globally recognized design framework, ensuring their products are “design-ready” for compliant networks.
  • Streamlined Requirements: A unified standard reduces the need to customize solutions for every different operator’s unique (and often conflicting) design requirements.

For End-Users and Enterprises:

  • Consistent Experience: Whether in a stadium, an office, or at home, users will benefit from a network designed to handle roaming and capacity correctly, delivering more consistent performance, faster response times, and fewer dropouts or periods of lag.
  • Future-Proofing: Enterprises investing in networks built around the principles outlined in this new Wi-Fi design standard will be better prepared for the demands of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7.

Tools and Capabilities Driving the Solution

To solve the challenges of fragmented design and validation, Ookla brings a unique combination of global network intelligence and precision measurement tools to the working group:

  • Precision RF Measurement & Diagnostics (Ekahau Sidekick 2): Ekahau by Ookla, provides the industry-standard hardware for spectrum analysis and Wi-Fi site surveys. The Sidekick 2 allows network engineers to capture precise RF data across 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz bands, identifying interference, coverage gaps, and capacity issues that software-only tools miss.
  • AI-Assisted Predictive Design (Ekahau AI Pro): Our planning software enables architects to model complex environments—from stadiums to warehouses—and simulate network performance before a single access point is installed. This ensures designs meet capacity requirements for high-density environments and modern applications like VoIP and video streaming while adhering to the WBA Wi-Fi design standard.
  • Real-World Quality of Experience (QoE) Testing: Beyond RF metrics, Ookla contributes the methodology for measuring the actual end-user experience. By integrating Speedtest® directly into the survey workflow, we can correlate RF signal strength with real-world throughput, latency, and jitter data. This allows operators to design beyond traditional networks that just had “good coverage,” to a modern Wi-Fi design based on WBA standards that actually delivers the connectivity required for demanding user applications.
  • Global Performance Benchmarks: Leveraging Ookla’s vast dataset of global network performance, we help the working group establish realistic, data-backed performance thresholds for different verticals, ensuring the new standard is grounded in how networks perform in the wild, not just in a lab.

Join the Initiative

Developing a truly global standard is an ambitious project and requires global collaboration. We are inviting wireless network designers, operators, infrastructure vendors, managed service providers, and certification bodies to join this working group and help shape the future of Wi-Fi deployment.

The development phase is set to kick off in Q1 2026, with a target to deliver the WBA Wi-Fi Design Standard v1.0 by the end of the year. As the effort moves forward, Ookla will continue providing real-world measurement, design, and performance insights to help ensure the standard remains grounded in how networks are deployed and experienced in the real world.Participation offers a direct opportunity to help define the benchmarks, KPIs, and design principles that will shape future Wi-Fi deployments worldwide. To contribute your expertise and be part of this WBA-led initiative, visit the project page or contact the WBA team directly.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

Wi-Fi 7

About the author

Dave Andersen

Dave Andersen is a Marketing Program Manager at Ookla, where he creates enterprise and consumer content across Ookla’s brands. Dave got his start in the telco space in 2012, producing content for RootMetrics. Dave has a bachelors in marketing from Washington State University and studied creative writing in Oklahoma State’s MFA program.

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