How fast is the internet at the busiest airports in the US during the holidays?
The holiday season is upon us here in the US, and airports across the land are bursting with passengers. For most of us that means standing in long lines and playing with our phones while waiting to board planes to grandmother’s house.
How much of that airport downtime will be spent waiting for videos, articles and the socials to load? That depends a lot on which airport you’re at and which carrier you have. We’ve tabulated Speedtest data for the busiest holiday weekends at the five busiest airports in the US to see what average mobile download speed you can expect.
Methodology
The busiest travel days of the year aren’t necessarily the ones you’d expect, so we looked at the travel windows around Memorial Day (May 23–25, 2015), Fourth of July (July 3–5, 2015), Labor Day (September 5–7, 2015), Thanksgiving (November 23–29, 2015) and Christmas (December 22–29, 2015). We’ve provided the average mobile download speed for each airport for the top four carriers for the holidays. We also highlighted the average download speed for each airport over the Thanksgiving and Christmas travel periods.
So which airport stands up to the holiday rush? When comparing locations, keep in mind that the average mobile download speed in the US is 19.61 Mbps.
Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta — ATL
With two carriers (Verizon and At&T) showing mobile download speeds significantly faster than the national average and one (T-Mobile) close behind the average, Atlanta’s not a bad place to wait for your next flight. On the flip side, you might want to skip the painfully slow Wi-Fi, lest it spoil your holiday cheer.
Los Angeles — LAX
We sincerely hope you aren’t spending too much time at LAX this holiday season. The weather is unbeatable, but the mobile download speeds for all four major carriers are abysmal. So slow, in fact, that Wi-Fi beat out every single major carrier’s speeds. We don’t know why mobile speeds are so slow in La La Land. But if you’re traveling with a digital boarding pass, you might want to save a screenshot rather than trying to download it in line.
Chicago O’Hare — ORD
If you’re flying out of Chicago O’Hare this holiday season and your mobile carrier happens to be Sprint, you are in good hands. Sprint’s download speed in Chicago for holiday weekends is the fastest of any carrier at any airport that we looked at. Verizon also boasts some commendable speeds. But if you use another provider, you may want to download those last-minute songs and movies you will need to pass the time before you leave for the airport. Otherwise, you may spend more time waiting for those downloads than you will in line for security.
Dallas Fort Worth — DFW
Flying out of the Lone Star State’s busiest airport? The good news is that DFW has the fastest airport Wi-Fi download speed of the five busiest airports in the US. The bad news is that the Wi-Fi is faster than any of the four major carriers. But if you’re connecting via cellular signal, Verizon is your best bet for download speed with a slight lead over the national average.
John F. Kennedy — JFK
If you’re leaving the Big Apple via JFK this holiday season, you’ll want to know that this airport has the second slowest Wi-Fi average download speed (Atlanta is slowest) and the second slowest average speeds during the Thanksgiving and Christmas rushes (LAX claims the bottom spot) at the places we analyzed. Verizon will give you the fastest average download speed. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint provide the next fastest respectively.
Which mobile carrier has the fastest download speed?
Unless you’re in Chicago, Verizon is the carrier to beat at the busiest airports during busy holiday travel. In fact, Verizon is the fastest carrier at all five airports for the year as a whole. But if you’re spending a lot of time at O’Hare on holiday weekends, Sprint is your best bet for fastest carrier.
Because the data we examined is all from 2015, your mobile experience this holiday season is likely to be at least a little faster than advertised. At least we hope so. Faster speeds make for a happier holiday season for all. May your travels be safe and your gatherings full of holiday spirit.
Want to compare notes with fellow travelers? Download the Speedtest app for iOS or Android and tweet your results with #Crowdspeed. If nothing else, it’ll give you something to do besides wandering the concourses looking for the shortest line for hot chocolate.
