South Korea has the highest percentage of hotels that offer quality wireless Internet, according to a study released last month by Hotel Wi-Fi Test, a company that collects and analyzes hotel Wi-Fi data from around the world.

With 92 percent in Wi-Fi quality, South Korea topped the list by a healthy margin of 7.1 percentage points. Japan came in second with 84.9 percent.

In third and fourth places were Ukraine and Switzerland, with 82.1 percent and 79.8 percent, respectively. 

The study assessed 50 countries based on two criteria. The first was the “quality,” or the availability of Wi-Fi, which was measured by the percentage of hotels that offer adequate Wi-Fi, with or without charge, in a given geographical area. To be judged “adequate,” a download speed of at least 3 Mbps and an upload speed of 500 Kbps had to be met.

The second criteria was the accessibility of Wi-Fi ― in other words, the ratio of hotels that offer free, in-room Wi-Fi. Consequently, Internet access that was charged for or offered only in public areas of a hotel was not counted.

With regards to free Wi-Fi, Norway ranked No. 1 among the top 10 “quality” countries.

By Rumy Doo (bigbird@heraldcorp.com)