Cleveland has the fastest mobile download speeds
Oklahoma City has the slowest, Opensignal says.
- I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
Opensignal found that the fastest speeds were in the North and Northeast, rather than "the tech hubs of the West Coast."
Want the fastest mobile download speeds possible? Move to Cleveland.
On networks in the 50 largest US cities, mobile analytics company Opensignal found that Cleveland provided about double the speeds of Oklahoma City, which came in last: 32.8 megabits per second versus 16.9Mbps.
The top five fastest cities were Cleveland, Minneapolis, New York, Detroit and Pittsburgh, while the bottom five were Memphis, Tennessee; New Orleans; Riverside, California; San Antonio; and Oklahoma City. For its latest report, the company looked at smartphone users' experiences on mobile networks from January through March of this year.
State by state, Opensignal found that the fastest speeds were in the North and Northeast, rather than "the tech hubs of the West Coast."
"California, home to both Silicon Valley and the movie industry, ranked just 19th in download speed experience while Washington state, home to Amazon and Microsoft's HQs, ranked 16th," the company noted Friday.
Mobile speeds state by state
The fastest state was New Jersey, with speeds of almost 33Mbps, while bottom-ranked Mississippi is averaging speeds of just 12Mbps. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio, Minnesota and North Dakota were also highly ranked.
On latency -- the time it takes to load web pages using mobile networks -- the top five major US cities were Baltimore, New York, Washington, Dallas and Philadelphia. The cities with the slowest latency were New Orleans; Kansas City; Nashville, Tennessee; Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky; and Memphis, Tennessee, according to the report.
With 5G coming in now, Opensignal said its next report will show exactly what difference the new networks make to download speeds.
"Carriers will find it hard to sell 5G services unless 5G offers a better mobile network experience," it said.
Earlier this week CNET tested Sprint's 5G speeds, and earlier this month, Verizon's 5G speeds. AT&T's 5G network is also live, while the first signs of T-Mobile's 5G network in New York have appeared.
