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Wireless Networking Transportation

Cell Service At US Airports Varies From 1st Class To Middle-seat Coach 40

Posted by samzenpus from the can-you-hear-me-now? dept.
alphadogg writes with this NetworkWorld story about the wide disparity in wireless coverage available at airports across the U.S.. Atlanta scores very high while Los Angeles International is less than mediocre. According to the story: You can download an episode of your favorite show in less than a minute and a half on Verizon Wireless at Atlanta's airport—or spend 13 hours doing the same over T-Mobile USA at Los Angeles International. The comparison of 45-minute HD video downloads illustrates the wide variation in cellular service at U.S. airports, which RootMetrics laid out in a report for the first half of 2015 that's being issued Thursday. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson is the best place to go mobile and Verizon covers airports best overall, but just like security lines and de-icing delays, it all depends.
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Cell Service At US Airports Varies From 1st Class To Middle-seat Coach More

Cell Service At US Airports Varies From 1st Class To Middle-seat Coach

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  • LAX T-Mobile service was pretty good for me just a few weeks ago, way better than the LAX WiFi!

    I've pretty much given up on airports and hotels to provide usable WiFi, I just tether now pretty much anywhere if possible.

  • ACTUAL Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Friday July 24, 2015 @03:35AM (#50173113) Homepage

    Can we get some ACTUAL numbers instead of just some bullshit article describing some vague numbers? As T-Mobile has already pointed out, according to Ookla (ya'know, speedtest.net and a few other services that provide data to the Ookla database), they come out on top on average in the nation. Granted average doesn't mean they're the best at every given location, but being a frequent traveler, I can easily attest that, no, T-Mobile's network isnt anywhere NEAR that slow at LAX. Also, what handsets were they using and in which modes? While other networks offer LTE server, T-Mobile has both LTE and HSDPA+ if the handset supports it. So which of these two networks were they testing?

  • The thing that kills me is that T-Mobile service is TERRIBLE at the University of Houston. Especially in the student center. Zero bars in large areas of the building.

    It's great in many other parts of town. Service absolutely sucks at the DFW Convention Center (zero bars).

    I can sort of understand DFW. Basically 2,000 business travellers for a big convention- who probably are not mostly T-Mobile users anyway.

    But why on earth would you allow 45,000 young people who are deciding what phone to use, p

    • T-Mo has the highest frequencies which are fast but have the worst building penetration because they were the last carrier to enter the US market

  • Now we know where to sit when we're feeling undercooked :D

  • How about a report on WiFi at airports? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Almost every international airport I go to in Asia or Europe have WiFi free of charge. I was so shock when I went to JFK in New York and find out you have to pay for WiFi after a short free trial (like 20 mins). Of course I'm tourist and just visiting so I don't have phone service, sovhaving WiFi to talk to the people I'm visiting is necessary. Just pathetic that they try to charge for that. I thought every airport had free WiFi by now, and trying to ask for phone to borrow is not fun. As well as how bad th

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      I blame airline consolidation.

      Fewer airlines, each hiding out in their fortified monopoly hub airports, means less gate competition and less gate competition means airports can probably charge less for gate access. It's probably even worse, because with fewer airlines overall a lot of airports worry about losing their hub status and probably charge even less to the big carrier left providing service or provide other accommodations which save the hub carrier money.

      This revenue pinch causes them to turn to c

  • Since when is data access cellular service?

    Silly me, I thought cellular service metrics were about call completion and drop rates.

  • In my travels I have found that US airports vary widely in availability of electric outlets for charging devices. For a while a lot of them were making them only available on a pay-per-use basis. Others had outlets freely available but not enough of them.

    Cell service is nice and all, but being as I'm flying steerage class where I pretty well never get an outlet to plug anything in to, I'm more interested in what I can do to charge my devices before the cattle call for boarding comes up. Doubly so at hub airports where I am connecting.

    • If you rely on your phone for work messages or reaching loved ones during travel, here are some hard-learned suggestions.

      1) Don't leave the house thinking "I've got 30%, that's plenty until I can find a charger!".
      2) No video or audio except when it's plugged into power or someone is paying you for it, whether it is your workplace or your family's good will.
      3) Use an older phone with simpler features. Real work _does not need_ large screens or high scores on cell phone games.
      4) If you get bored, bring or ge

      • Thanks, Martha. It's good to see you keeping busy on SlashDot.

        My travel advice?

        #1) Always pack a 15-foot extension cord and multi-outlet adapters. Most people are cool about sharing an outlet with you if you both 1) let them continue to charge and 2) find a way to sit 15 feet outside their personal space.

        #2) Stay the hell away from O'Hare (in Chicago). In the city of "don't want to talk to nobody no-one sent" you aren't going to find any outlets.

        • Thanks, Martha. It's good to see you keeping busy on SlashDot.

          My travel advice?

          Chastity belts are nice for check-in time as well

    • You used to be able to buy a spare battery if your usage dictated you frequently may be away from an outlet (recharge) for an indeterminate period of time. But then people who cared more about form over function dictated that such usage patterns were unimportant, and the swappable battery was sacrificed to make these devices one or two mm thinner.

      • Spare batteries are all over the place. Airports in particular have shops where you can buy precharged ones. It's just that now they all have USB ports so they're all universally compatible rather than differing for each mobile device. I also have a battery *case* for my iPhone which allows me to charge it with a micro USB cable like everything else. No swapping required, just push a button to start or stop charging the internal battery from the case battery.

        On my last trip I traveled with a large battery w

  • The headline does not appear to match the story.

  • "You can download an episode of your favorite show in less than a minute and a half on Verizon Wireless at Atlanta's airportâ""

    Except if you are an international traveler, in that case your GSM world phone won't talk to Verizon's CDMA nightmare.

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