For those looking to travel for Thanksgiving next week, it might be better to get all of your online errands taken care of before heading to the airports in Houston.
Ookla, a network diagnostics company based in Seattle, ran a speed test on the fixed broadband internet download speeds on the free Wi-Fi offered by each of the country’s 50 largest airports.
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The two lowest scoring airports? William P. Hobby Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the two major airports in Houston.
The average Wi-Fi speed at Hobby was 21.46 Mbps, while Bush was just higher at 22.9 Mbps. For local comparison, Austin’s Austin-Bergstrom International Airport clocked in at 71.57 Mbps, and Dallas’ Dallas Love Field Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport scored 90.15 Mbps and 107.14 Mbps, respectively.
The study also examined mobile internet download speeds (i.e. the mobile network offered by your smart phone) at the same airports. In those tests, the Houston airports weren’t at the very bottom but still tested relatively poorly.
Hobby tested at 69.38 Mbps, and Bush scored at 72.75 Mbps. Notably, both airports had mobile download speeds more than three times higher than their airport Wi-Fi speeds, so make sure you bring your network hotspots!
Check out the full study here.