Kerry Baker

Which airline offers the fastest in-flight Wi-Fi? It’s a simple question with an increasingly important answer. As our lives become more “always connected,” the frustration of poor or non-existent connectivity becomes more acute. We have reached a point where the quality of in-flight connectivity (IFC) can be a decisive factor for passengers choosing flights and airlines based on their digital experience. For airlines, providing high-quality Wi-Fi is no longer just a perk—now it is a critical driver of passenger loyalty.

Wi-Fi connectivity is a consumer expectation throughout the travel industry. There are any number of reasons for needing to be connected online on a cruise ship. Staying in touch with people back home directly (messaging, video calls) and sharing the experience via social media are a given. Staying up on things—sports, news—seemingly antithetical to the spirit of taking a cruise, is certainly welcome as well, including access to one’s on-shore streaming habits. Key takeaways on cruise ship connectivity:

Cable is in a pitched battle for broadband subscribers in the US. It has been losing. On one side of cable, fixed wireless access from mobile providers, with its “good enough” value proposition, has captured the bulk of broadband customers growth the past three years. On cable’s other flank, fiber-to-the-home outperforms cable, according to Ookla’s Speedtest® Connectivity Report for the United States in H1 2025, and fiber providers are holding their ground on subscribers.

Wi-Fi 7 has been around for over a year. If you haven’t noticed this latest generation of Wi-Fi technology, it might be because it is still just gaining a foothold. But even for those who haven’t yet heard of Wi-Fi 7, one can surmise that a new technology generation will have better performance than what’s come before. This article looks at the growth of Wi-Fi 7 in the United States, then compares its performance against prior Wi-Fi generations across top fixed internet service providers. Some key takeaways:

Customers of the two biggest cable mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) in the U.S.—Charter’s Spectrum Mobile and Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile—are both enjoying an impressive upward trajectory in their overall network performance. In their respective service areas over the past two years, Spectrum Mobile and Xfinity Mobile users’ download speeds increased by more than 100 Mbps.

The Maine Connectivity Authority (MCA) recently made it possible for homes and businesses in remote locations of the state to become eligible to receive low-Earth orbit satellite internet service from Starlink. According to Ookla data, Starlink Speedtest users in Maine are able to get median download speeds of 116.77 Mbps, which surpasses the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) threshold for broadband. Maine is a Top 10 state in Ookla’s U.S.