Which airport has the best cellphone service?
It's not only the busiest airport in the world, but Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International also tops the rankings when it comes to how well your mobile device works, according to a study released today.
Atlanta, with more than 96 million annual passengers, was named the airport that provides the best mobile network data performance in RootMetrics' latest rankings of the 50 busiest U.S. airports. Atlanta moved up from the No. 7 spot it occupied the last time the cellular service testing company ranked airports.
Cleveland-Hopkins International, Southwest Florida International, San Jose International and Dallas Love Field rounded out the top five airports for cellular service.
The report judged service by median download and upload speed and how well the mobile network handled consumer-based activities such as checking email and using the web and apps. Testers were sent out to airports to judge performance for the first half of this year.
"So much of the performance depends on variables of what you see at an airport: where it's located, how close it is to the city center, what type of materials they used to build the building, how old the building is," says Julie Dey, VP of RootMetrics.
As for carriers, Verizon outranked its competitors, providing the best mobile device service at 29 of the 50 airports. T-Mobile followed closely behind. AT&T and Sprint trailed the two carriers.
Verizon recorded the fastest airport median download and upload speeds with a 68.8 Mbps download and 40.4 Mbps upload at Chicago's Midway International.
Of all the carriers, Sprint is the one that did not earn top marks at any of the airports examined, mostly because it lagged in speed.
But the carrier did show improvement in reliability, the report found. RootMetrics was able to connect to Sprint's network in more than 97% of tests at 31 airports, compared to only 21 airports in the last round of testing.
The report also highlighted the airports where cellular service is poor. Nashville International, with just over 11 million annual passengers, had the worst performance. Rounding out the bottom five were San Diego International, Los Angeles International, Honolulu International and Philadelphia International.
Los Angeles International (LAX), one of the busiest U.S. airports with 32.4 million passengers a year, had poor carrier data speeds, the report found.
For instance, it took 38 minutes to download a 45-minute high-definition video at LAX via AT&T vs. two minutes in Atlanta.
"As you are considering traveling and you know you are going to be at a certain place and airport, you want to know if you can be connected and stay connected," Dey says.
Here is RootMetrics' ranking of the 50 busiest U.S. airports based on mobile network data performance:
1. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International
2. Cleveland Hopkins International
3. Southwest Florida International
4. San Jose International
5. Dallas Love Field
6. Milwaukee General Mitchell International
7. Washington Dulles International
8. Boston Logan International
9. Sacramento International
10. Oakland International
11. Indianapolis International
12. Baltimore/Washington International
13. Newark Liberty International
14. Tampa International
15. Pittsburgh International
16. Raleigh/Durham International
17. Houston George Bush Intercontinental
18. Orange County John Wayne
19. Salt Lake City International
20. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International
21. John F. Kennedy International
22. Miami International
23. Kahului
24. Dallas/Fort Worth International
25. Charlotte Douglas International
26. Seattle-Tacoma International
27. Las Vegas McCarran International
28. Minneapolis-St. Paul International
29. Portland International
30. Kansas City International
31. Phoenix Sky Harbor International
32. San Francisco International
33. Detroit Metropolitan
34. Chicago O'Hare International
35. Port Columbus International
36. Lambert-St. Louis International
37. Chicago Midway International
38. LaGuardia
39. Austin Bergstrom International
40. Orlando International
41. Houston Hobby
42. Denver International
43. Ronald Reagan Washington National
44. San Antonio International
45. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International
46. Philadelphia International
47. Honolulu International
48. Los Angeles International
49. San Diego International
50. Nashville International