It’s hard to imagine living without at least occasional access to WiFi. And that’s especially true when you’re traveling, when hefty roaming charges can make it even more crucial to scope out a signal and connect with friends and family, not to mention travel information. So which countries in Latin America offer the best WiFi, and which are the worst?
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Ooma, an Internet-based communications hub that lets users make calls overseas via WiFi, recently released a new report to help WiFi-addicted travelers choose their destinations wisely. Unfortunately Latin America didn’t score well.
• Believe it or not, Lithuania scored the best, with the fastest public WiFi at 15.4 Mbps.
• Canada and the USA scored #19 and #20 in terms of public WiFi speed.
• The country with the fastest overall Internet connection speed, both private and public, is South Korea.
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Unfortunately, the Latin America rankings are all bad:
• Venezuela took the honors (if you can phrase it that way), as having the slowest overall Internet connection speed, both private and public, in the world.
• Paraguay ranked as the second-worst country.
• Bolivia was the fourth worts (Namibia was in the number three rank).
• When it comes to mobile connectivity (people connecting with devices), Latin America has four of the five countries with the world’s slowest connection speeds: Panama, Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela share this negative ranking with Vietnam.
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Best Places in Latin America for WiFi
I had to look elsewhere to find anything good about WiFi in Latin America. According to Nomad List, a Website that ranks the best places to live and work remotely, the following destinations in Latin America have the fastest overall WiFi:
• Panama City, Panama: This Central American city ranks as “great” for free WiFi in the city (I’ve actually used free WiFi in some small city squares in the historic Casco Viejo), and Internet ranks well at 25 Mbps.
• Mar del Plata, Argentina: Free WiFi is ranked as “bad” here, but Internet speed ranks well at 22 Mbps.
• Campo Grande, Brazil: Free WiFi scores as “bad” here too, but like Mar del Plata, Internet speed is 22 Mbps.