Opensignal celebrated the travel and vacation season by taking a good look at popular vacation destinations in the United States with the highest and lowest mobile download speeds and LTE availability.Regarding download speeds, the firm found that the top locale was Ocean City, NJ, with a speed of 39.1 Mbps. The slowest was found in Cheyenne, WY, at 13.7 Mbps. Rounding out the top ten: Barnstable (MA, 34 Mbps), Minneapolis (32 Mbps), New York City (31.3 Mbps), Boston (29.6 Mbps), Seattle (28.4 Mbps), Virginia Beach (28 Mbps), Kansas City (MO, 27.1 Mbps), Chicago (27.1 Mbps) and Portland (OR, 25.8 Mbps).
Upload speeds ranged from 9.1 Mbps in New York City to 4.4 Mbps in Cheyenne, WY. Rounding out the top ten: Chicago (8.2 Mbps), Minneapolis (8.1 Mbps), Boston (8 Mbps), Los Angeles (7.9 Mbps), San Diego (7.8 Mbps), Ocean City (NJ, 7.7 Mbps), Seattle (7.6 Mbps), Virginia Beach (7.3 Mbps) and Nashville (7.2 Mbps).
Opensignal found 4G availability to range between 96.2% in Savannah, GA and 84.9% in Flagstaff, AZ. Rounding out the top ten: Myrtle Beach (SC, 96%), Minneapolis (95.8%), Virginia Beach (95.6%), Chicago (95.5%), Orlando (95.5%), Kansas City (MO, 95.1%), Los Angeles (94.9%), Hilton Head (SC, 94.9) and Barnstable (MA, 94.9).
There is at least one important and more general takeaway in the research. “It’s also interesting to note that the biggest cities didn’t necessarily have the fastest download speeds, even though operators tend to concentrate their network investment in the densest urban areas,” wrote Kevin Fitchard at the Opensignal blogpost discussing the results. “Two of the smallest communities on our list, Ocean City and Barnstable, ranked the highest, with Ocean City averaging download speeds a full 7 Mbps faster than the highest ranking big city, Minneapolis. But as we move further down our chart, we see the big-vs.-small divide rearing its head. All of the destinations that scored below 20 Mbps in Download Speed Experience were smaller cities.”
The idea of letting people know what they are likely to find once they get to their destinations is a good one. However, it seems that in most cases – perhaps outside the most extreme comparisons – service will be about the same for travelers. Huge download speeds are not necessary to find the address of a restaurant, for instance. Likewise, the difference between destinations with the highest and lowest LTE availability – 11 percentage points – is unlikely to inconvenience many folks.