Ookla just released two new reports based on Speedtest Intelligence data, revealing critical shifts in how Americans connect to the Internet- from their homes and from the country’s 50 busiest airports.

Key findings from the first report:

• T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon —  adding 1.04 million new subscribers in Q3 2025 bringing the total number of FWA customers to 14.7 million, which is slightly more than 12.5% of the 117.4 million U.S. households with broadband, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey.
• T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T all experienced declines in both their median download and upload speeds during Q2 2025 and Q3 2025.
• T-Mobile is the FWA speed leader with median download speed of 209.06 Mbps for Q3 2025, which is approximately double that of AT&T’s median download speed of 104.63 Mbps in the same quarter.
• AT&T and T-Mobile customers in the 10th percentile of users are experiencing speed declines during peak hours in the late afternoon and evening. Verizon subscribers in the 10th percentile don’t have the same sorts of declines, indicating the operator’s enforcement of speed caps may be helping it deliver a more consistent experience to those customers.
• AT&T Internet Air’s latency is higher than its peers but it’s improving.  AT&T’s median multi-server latency is ~ 67 milliseconds, “consistently higher” than Verizon (54 ms) and T-Mobile (50 ms) but a notable improvement from 78 ms in Q3 2024.

Separately, the analysts at New Street Research estimated AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon can currently support up to 32 million FWA customers and they have already added nearly 50% of that number. Operators could potentially increase that load to 36 million following the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) upper C-Band auction.

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Ookla’s second report analyzes cellular and Wi-Fi performance across the top 50 U.S. airports by passengers.  Key findings:

• Cellular network providers had a faster median download speed than Wi-Fi in most airports and more than twice as fast on average.
• Verizon was fastest in the most airports comparing among all mobile providers and airport Wi-Fi including ties.
• Airport Wi-Fi was faster than mobile networks in just over one-third of head-to-head comparisons (including ties), and faster than all mobile providers in five airports.
• Older Wi-Fi technologies may be holding back internet speed in airports with 72.9% of Speedtest samples on Wi-Fi 5 and older generation versus 46.0% in the U.S. overall.

Wi-Fi was faster than any mobile provider in these five airports:

• Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International
• San Francisco International
• Orlando International
• Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International
• Baltimore/Washington International (tie)

Wi-Fi is better by the Bay:

As shown in Wi-Fi’s fastest five airports, Oakland International and Norman Y. Mineta San José International made that list. Rounding out the Bay Area airportstrio, the Wi-Fi speed in San Francisco International comfortably topped the mobile providers.

SFO was the only airport in Ookla’s analysis with Speedtest samples using the 6 GHz band. This was on Wi-Fi 6E – too soon to expect Wi-Fi 7 in airports – with a median download speed of 364.74 Mbps (also remarkable were the median upload speed of 426.04 Mbps and an 8 ms multi-server latency).

References:

https://www.ookla.com/articles/u-s-fwa-report-december-2025

https://www.ookla.com/articles/cellular-faster-than-wi-fi-in-us-airports

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