A new study from Opensignal looks at how 5G performance compares at the 25 busiest airports vs 5G/LTE overall speeds as well as putting the numbers up against the national average in the US. Despite Verizon and AT&T pushing back their plans to launch 5G C-band coverage near airfields due to FAA concerns, airport 5G connectivity is offering an impressive experience.
While Opensignal found average 5G download speeds to be 2-3x faster at the 25 busiest US airports than the overall average, it also uncovered another interesting finding, users spent an average of 6.5x more time without any signal at these airports.
Opensignal’s results are based on data gathered from March to May this year from within two miles of the 25 busiest airports (per the FAA).
Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and LaGuardia were the top three airports with the fastest average 5G download speeds.
SLC came in with a 221.4 Mbps average, LAX with 200.8 Mbps, and LGA with 199.2 Mbps. SLC and LAX 5G speeds were 3x faster than the overall 5G/LTE average.
For the big picture, 5G at the top 25 airports averaged at 129.1 Mbps while the US national average was 119 Mbps. Overall download speeds at the 25 airports was 51 Mbps compared to 38.6 for the US average.
But while the overall 5G and LTE experiences are better at the top 25 US airports, Opensignal also found time with no signal was 5.7% of the time compared to the low national average of 0.9% – that’s a 6.5x greater liklihood of having no signal.
Here’s a closer breakdown of the airports with the worst coverage:
Check out the full report from Opensignal for all the details.
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