Broader fiber deployment is now exposing bottlenecks that were previously hidden.

May 28, 2026 – Aging home Wi-Fi hardware, not fiber infrastructure, is now the primary bottleneck limiting broadband quality in the world’s most connected markets, analysts said Thursday.

That was the central finding of a webinar hosted by Ookla, where researchers argued that multi-gigabit fiber has become a commodity across Europe, Latin America, the United States, and parts of Asia-Pacific and the Gulf.

Luke Kehoe, lead industry analyst at Ookla, said the competitive battleground has moved.