NYC records fastest aggregate Internet speed in the U.S., report finds

New York City and the Tri-State Area have recorded the fastest aggregate Internet speed in the United States with a median download speed of 46.3 Mbps which topped the 10 biggest cities in the country and tops the rankings for all 125 cities tested in the second half of 2020, a new report finds.

According to the report by U.S.-based Mobile phone network company Rootmetrics, contributing to NYC’s impressive speed was Verizon’s sterling 72.0 Mbps, the fastest carrier speed in any of the country’s ten biggest cities—and the second fastest speed in any city, trailing only AT&T’s 77.5 Mbps in Kansas City, MO.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., also had strong showings, clocking in with speeds slightly behind that of NYC at 44.6 Mbps for Philly and 42.6 Mbps for DC, providing consumers in both cities with quick access to content and entertainment.

Philly finished 3rd and the nation’s capital ranked 9th out of 125.

On the other hand, big cities like Miami and Houston finished closer to the bottom than the top, coming in at 81st and 92nd, respectively.

“While speeds among the nation’s 10 biggest cities were somewhat mixed, there was good news to be found across the board, with at least one carrier providing strong speeds in each of these heavily populated markets,” the report noted.

Rootmetrics calculated each market’s speed, they aggregated the median download speeds recorded on the networks of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon in each of the 125 most populated metropolitan markets in the country and ranked them from fastest to slowest.

“Note that all speeds in this report reflect overall median download speeds recorded on all network technologies, including 4G LTE and 5G (where applicable),” the company highlighted.

In parallel, the report noted that the aggregate speeds of Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago were strong and very close, with just 0.7 Mbps separating the speeds of Atlanta (38.8 Mbps) and Boston (38.1 Mbps), with Chicago slightly behind at 36.0 Mbps.

“The Carrier speeds in each market were generally good, with Verizon delivering the fastest aggregate Internet speed in all three cities and T-Mobile registering the slowest, with its lowest speed clocking in at a decent 21.4 Mbps in Chicago,” the company explained.

However, Dallas and Los Angeles were home to extremely close aggregate speeds of 32.3 Mbps and 31.5 Mbps, respectively, and while both cities’ speeds ranked near the middle of the pack, speeds of 30 Mbps are typically fast enough for users to enjoy smooth gaming and fast file downloads.

“Verizon posted the fastest speed in both cities, with its high a strong 58.3 Mbps in Dallas. T-Mobile, on the other hand, had the slowest speed in each city, with its median download speed of 11.7 Mbps in Dallas among the 15 slowest speeds we recorded in any city,” the report added.

Houston’s and Miami’s aggregate speeds were not as eye-catching as those of some other cities. “The aggregate speeds we found would still allow users to download a 600MB movie in less than three minutes (compared to about 1.7 minutes in NYC),” Rootmetrics said.

AT&T and Verizon both delivered strong overall speeds in each market.

“As 5G deployments continue and existing 5G networks expand and mature, overall speeds should rise, and it’s likely that we’ll see greater speed parity in cities across the country going forward,” Rootmetrics said.

However, it is notable, that even through a market may have a low-speed ranking, it does not necessarily mean that every carrier’s speed in that market was poor.

“Because our aggregate median download speeds consider speed results across all carriers in a market, fast speeds from one carrier can be canceled out by lagging speeds from other carriers. For details on performance within individual markets, see our Metro Area RootScore Reports for the top 125 metros across the U.S.,” the report stressed.