Wi-Fi adoption remains uneven across Asia-Pacific, with the region’s leading market exceeding North America on newer wireless standards while several other markets continue to rely heavily on older routers. That is the conclusion of an Ookla report based on Speedtest Intelligence data from the third quarter of 2026, with market trends tracked back to the first quarter of 2024.
Ookla compared 13 Asia-Pacific markets and used North America and Europe as reference points. The report covers home connections spanning Wi-Fi 4 through Wi-Fi 7. It also highlights the growing importance of the gap between those generations as broadband plans become faster and regulators make the 6 GHz band available, a band associated with the latest Wi-Fi generations.
| Market | Wi-Fi 6 or newer | Other finding |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | 79.7% | 15.5% of connections tested below 100 Mbps |
| North America | 67.3% | Reference market in the comparison |
| Indonesia | 9.8% | 49.9% remained on Wi-Fi 4 |
| Vietnam | 34.2% | Nearly fourfold increase since Q1 2024 |
Singapore led the comparison, with Wi-Fi 6 or newer accounting for 79.7% of Speedtest samples during the quarter. North America recorded 67.3%. Indonesia was at the other end of the range, with just 9.8% of samples using Wi-Fi 6 or a newer generation and 49.9% still using Wi-Fi 4.
The figures also show a disconnect between device capability and the network equipment serving it. In Indonesia, 79.9% of phones capable of Wi-Fi 6 or newer connected through Wi-Fi 5 or older at home. The corresponding shares were 72.7% in India and 54.4% in the Philippines. The results indicate that newer client hardware does not by itself move a household to a newer wireless standard when the installed router remains older.
- Singapore’s share of samples on Wi-Fi 6 or newer rose by 32.4 percentage points between Q1 2024 and Q3 2026.
- Indonesia’s share increased by 6.3 percentage points over the same period.
- Vietnam reached 34.2% on Wi-Fi 6 or newer after nearly quadrupling from its level in early 2024.
Speed gains depended on the upgrade path
Ookla’s speed comparisons show that a router-generation change can be associated with a substantial improvement, but the result varied by market and by the broadband plan in use. Homes that moved from Wi-Fi 4 to Wi-Fi 5 recorded roughly double or greater median download speeds across all nine markets included in that comparison. Some households also shifted to a faster internet plan, so the report does not attribute every gain solely to the wireless equipment.
The same qualification applies to Wi-Fi 6 upgrades. In India, moving from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 produced a 0.2% decline in median download speed, while 72.4% of Indian connections tested below 100 Mbps. In Singapore, the equivalent migration delivered a 131.3% increase, with 15.5% of connections below 100 Mbps. Ookla therefore characterized router and broadband-plan upgrades as working best together rather than as independent changes.
The report’s central finding is not that one Wi-Fi generation produces the same result everywhere. Instead, the data ties adoption to the wider connection environment: router age, client capability, available spectrum and the speed of the underlying broadband service. For professional network designers, the comparison provides market-specific evidence that the performance benefit associated with newer Wi-Fi hardware depends on the rest of the installation being capable of supporting it.
