These Coffee Shops Have The Fastest Free Wi-Fi

Everybody knows coffee shops are for more than jut coffee. These days, coffee shops are a great spot to get some free Wi-Fi. So, it can be frustrating when you settle in at your favorite coffee shop and find out that the Wi-Fi is actually super slow. That won't be an issue anymore, though, because PCMag conducted a nationwide study that tested the Wi-Fi at 11 major coffee shop chains. The results may surprise you. Here are the results of PCMag's study: 

• Joe & the Juice takes the crown for the fastest coffee chain Wi-Fi, while Dunkin' Donuts beats Starbucks in terms of speed among big national chains.
• Last year, Dunkin' Donuts was our nationwide winner, but Dunkin’ was dethroned by a smaller, local chain: Joe & the Juice. You can find Joe & The Juice locations in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco Bay, and Washington DC metro areas, if you’re looking for the fastest Wi-Fi coffee shop. The fastest Joe & the Juice shops are all in New York City; every test we saw with speeds over 100Mbps is in Manhattan.
• Starbucks' fastest speeds are better distributed across the nation, but harder to find in any one metro area. Abilene, Austin, Charleston, and Kansas City are all home to fast Starbucks locations.
• One thing we noticed: Coffee shop chains, these days, are highly regional. With Dunkin' and Starbucks taken out of the map, different chains are clustered in different locations. We found that Peet's is California-centric, while Caribou is focused in the upper Midwest, Krispy Kreme is primarily in the South, Tim Horton's has a lot of locations in Ohio and Michigan, and Caffe Nero is primarily around Boston.
• So for a quick, highly caffeinated upload, Dunkin' Donuts is your best bet. Joe & the Juice is a place to sit around for a while and work. Starbucks comes in second among coffee shops that encourage you to hang around and work.
• As with last year, the different ways people use Dunkin' and Starbucks Wi-Fi may also play a role in Dunkin's win over Starbucks. Starbucks encourages people to sit around for hours with laptops; Dunkin's are built to cater to a faster pace, on-the-go consumer.

PCMag made some other interesting conclusions, as well, including:

Even in the 5G Era, Coffee Shop Wi-Fi Matters

• While 4G LTE and 5G are both often faster than the Wi-Fi we tested in this story, free coffee shop Wi-Fi will remain critical for many more years because it works indoors, and it's uncapped.
• 5G devices are also very expensive right now, and won't be widespread for several years. According to research, 5G phones will still make up only 26% of worldwide sales by 2023. Nearly everything already has Wi-Fi, though. So for the foreseeable future, Wi-Fi is going to be how we hook up our satellite offices.

Is Free Wi-Fi Safe?

• Public Wi-Fi is incredibly convenient, but it's not necessarily secure. If you’re on an unsecured, public WiFi network, anyone could be watching your activity and potentially stealing your personal data. The business providing the Wi-Fi may also be spying on you, to see what its customers are shopping for and make its own business decisions accordingly.
• The best idea is to use a VPN when you're on public Wi-Fi. VPNs encrypt your data as it travels over the public network, preventing the Wi-Fi provider from understanding what you're doing. There are a number of good free VPNs available, but they all have trade-offs so make sure you choose the one that best suits your security needs. 

What's your favorite coffee shop?

Photo: Getty