Use this page to find (or record) the best public wifi spots in the Champaign-Urbana area.
Public Wi-Fi Connections Are Not Equal!
Champaign-Urbana has a large population of roaming students, academics and professionals who work from their laptop. A solid internet connection can be essential to working on the go, and not all public wifi connections are created equal. Nearly all places have wifi, but there's nothing more frustrating than showing up to work and realize the internet connection is nearly unusable.
Contribute
Use this page to record real-world speed tests of coffee-shop and other public wifi locations. Please edit this page and add your own entries! Instructions below.
Wifi Speeds
Business or Location (include wiki link) |
City | Wifi Hotspot (SSID) | Password? | Ping Speed | Download Speed | Upload Speed | Date Tested | Notes |
Aroma Cafe | Champaign | AromaCafe | No | 16 ms | 80 Mbps | 10 Mbps | Sept 23 2020 | Merged with Cowboy Monkey; indoor seating with lots of plugs and bar tunes. |
Atlanta Bread Company | Champaign | Atlanta Bread | No | 35 ms | 3.22 Mbps | 0.47 Mbps | Jan 18th, 2016 | Lots of seats and power. |
Biggby Coffee (Mattis) | Champaign | BIGGBY Wifi | No | 22 ms | 15.47 Mbps | 3.65 Mbps | Jan 20th, 2016 |
Empty. Lots of seats and power. |
Caffe Paradiso | Urbana | CaffeParadiso2 | macarons (changes) | |||||
Cafe Zolo | Urbana | WesternDigital | No | 20 ms | 15.01 Mbps | 4.37 Mbps | June 5, 2013 | router can freeze and need resetting by owner |
Champaign Public Library | Champaign | Champaign_Public_Library | No | 15 ms | 11.1 Mbps | 5.3 Mbps | Jan 25, 2016 | Private rooms available |
Einstein Bros Bagels | Urbana | BagelNet | No | 69ms | 3.38 Mbps | 0.64 Mbps | Jan 10, 2013 | No power plugs! |
Espresso Royale (Krannert) | Urbana | |||||||
Espresso Royale (The Crossing) | Champaign | "guest" | No | 62 ms | 0.55 Mbps | 1.67 Mbps | Jan 11, 2013 | painfully slow |
Esquire Bar and Grill | Champaign | ESQUIRE or ESQUIRE1 | No | 20 ms | 18.7 Mbps | 3.54 Mbps | Jan 22, 2016 | |
Everyday Kitchen | Champaign | Lodgic Guest (Open) | No | 2ms | 260 Mbps | 240 Mbps | Dec 4, 2021 | Lightning Fast Upload Speed! |
Flying Machine Coffee | Urbana | cafeteria&co | #eaturbana | 57.72 Mbps | 11.82 Mbps | Jan 8, 2014 | It's actually this fast. | |
Cafe Kopi | Champaign | Kopi | No | 18 ms | 4.85 Mbps | 2.81 Mbps | Jan 26th, 2016 | |
McDonalds (Neil & Kirby) | Champaign | attwifi | No | 94 ms | 1.1 Mbps | 0.30 Mbps | Jan 15, 2013 | |
Panera (N Neil St) | Champaign | PANERA | No | 50 ms | 0.51 Mbps | 0.60 Mbps | Jan 23, 1013 | drops often |
Panera on Kirby | Champaign | No | 32 ms | .95 Mbps | .98 Mbps | Mar 19, 2014 | ||
Pekara (from Quality) | Champaign | Pekara | No | 51 ms | 2.7-3.7 Mbps | 0.53 Mbps | Jan 10, 2013 | |
Quality | Champaign | Quality | founders | 35 ms | 2.16 Mbps | 0.42 Mbps | Jan 10, 2013 | |
Radio Maria | Champaign | Radio Maria | 1234567890 | |||||
Seven Saints | Champaign | Free Pavlov Media Downtown | No | 23 ms | 6.02 Mbps | 0.45 Mbps | Jun 6, 2013 | 23 SSIDs show up; 5 don't require a password |
Seven Saints | Champaign | Seven Saints-b/g/n 2.4G | No | 19 ms | 24.51 Mbps | 2.44 Mbps | Jun 6, 2013 | This speed was logged at 10:50pm |
Snow Meets Coffee | Champaign | Snow Meets Coffee | No | 25 ms | 4.12 Mbps | 0.95 Mbps | Jan 23rd, 2016 | |
Starbucks (5th / Green) | Champaign | Google Starbucks | No | 15 ms | 33.36 Mbps | 12.02 Mbps | Jan 19th, 2016 | |
Starbucks (N Prospect) | Champaign | attwifi | No | 61 ms | 58.68 Mbps | 11.59 Mbps | April 2, 2014 | |
Starbucks (Main/Vine) | Urbana | GoogleWifi | No | 25 ms | 58.41 Mbps | 11.23 Mbps | March 24, 2014 | |
Starbucks (S Neil) | Champaign | Starbucks WiFi | No | 160ms | 0.96 Mbps | 0.69 Mbps | Jan 18th, 2016 | Painfully slow. Hopefully a glitch? |
U of I Campus | IllinoisNet_Start | Free account, good for 24 hours | 10ms | 60.35 Mbps | 66.22 Mbps | Jan 21st, 2016 | Available most areas on campus. | |
Urbana Free Library | Urbana | Urbana Free Library | No | 27ms | 3.40 Mbps | 6.69 Mbps | Mar 3, 2014 |
How to do a Speed Test
- Make sure you're connected to the hotspot you want to test.
- Go to http://www.speedtest.net
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Begin the Test
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Record the result
- (If you're ambitious) For better accuracy, do it twice and average the results
Add Your Entry to the Table Above
- Use Edit button at the top of this page
- The table does not auto-sort. Please put your entry in A-Z order.
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To add a new row, put the cursor in the table, right-click, and insert a new row above or below.
- Record your results in the table.
- Be sure to link your place name to the corresponding CU WIki page, even if it doesn't exist yet. If you have time, you can create a new one using the Restaurant or Business templates.
- If the download speed is lower than 1 Mbps, you can mark the row in red. Select the row, choose Cell -> Cell Properties -> Cell Background.
- Thanks for helping others out!
Notes on Accuracy
Wifi speed can be affected by a lot of factors, and simple things like the number of people using the single connection and where someone sits in the coffee shop will have an effect. So while the numbers on the chart aren't exact and could vary if tested again, the resulting chart may still be useful to identify generally the best and worst relative to other locations.