Airports with best, worst cell service
If you use your phone while waiting to board a plane or pick up baggage, you may have noticed it works a lot better at some airports than others.
And travelers at Philadelphia International Airport encounter some of the slowest network speeds among the country's major airports.
A new report from Washington state-based RootMetrics ranks the nation's 50 busiest airports based on their mobile network performance. While many airports, including Philadelphia International, offer free WiFi to travelers, passengers often turn to the cellular networks if the WiFi service is spotty.
The report, which evaluated the upload and download speeds, as well as reliability and performance for other data-based tasks like email, ranked Philadelphia 46th out of the 50 airports studies.
The 10 best airports, according to the study, were:
1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, Atlanta
2. Cleveland-Hopkins International, Cleveland
3. Southwest Florida International, Fort Myers
4. San Jose International, San Jose
5. Dallas Love Field, Dallas
6. General Mitchell International, Milwaukee
7. Washington Dulles International, Washington, D.C.
8. Logan International, Boston
9. Sacramento International, Sacramento
10. Metropolitan Oakland International, San Francisco
And the 10 worst for mobile service:
50. Nashville International
49. San Diego International
48. Los Angeles International
47. Honolulu International
46. Philadelphia International
45. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, New Orleans
44. San Antonio International, San Antonio
43. Ronald Reagan National, Washington, DC
42. Denver International, Denver
41. William P. Hobby, Houston
"Such vast differences in speeds from airport to airport, and from network to network, can have a marked real-world impact on your travel experience," the report said.
RootMetrics said Verizon typically fared the best, while Sprint's service was the worst. In Philadelphia, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all performed equally well when evaluating speed and reliability combined, with Sprint lagging slightly behind.
RootMetrics measured median download speeds for PHL at 3.1 Megabits per second (Mbps) on AT&T's network, 3.0 Mbps on Sprint, 3.2 Mbps for T-Mobile and 0.9 Mbps for Verizon.
As an example, the report said a 45-minute high-definition video would take just two minutes to download at Hartsfield-Jackson, while the same video could take up to 38 minutes to download at LAX, where network speeds measured were similar to Philadelphia.
The report noted that Atlanta's performance was "all the more impressive given how many passengers place demands on the mobile networks each year" at the busy travel hub.
Passenger flow, dense building materials and restrictions on tower and antenna placement can all pose difficulties for mobile network performance at airports, RootMetrics said.
A Philadelphia airport spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a Twitter post responding to a news story about the report, the airport touted its upgraded WiFi system: "We believe it is now one of the fastest, most robust of any airport in the country!"