Choose These Vacation Hotspots to Avoid Mobile “Dead Spots” on your Summer Getaway

These top travel destinations reveals which offers the best experience for streaming music, uploading videos and selfies, and accessing navigation apps.

Nearly 49 million Americans are gearing up for 4^th of July travel this week according to AAA, and they will be using their smartphones to do everything from mapping out driving routes to streaming music to sharing vacation photos and videos with family and friends. To understand the mobile connectivity experience travelers can expect, Opensignal, the independent global standard for measuring real-world mobile network experience, has released new analysis on 30 of the most popular U.S. summer travel destinations.

Opensignal looked at locations across the Northeast, South, Midwest and West including a mix of big urban vacation spots like L.A., quaint towns like Barnstable on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and resort getaways such as Kahului in Hawaii. Using experience data shared from more than one million mobile devices via OpenSignal and partner apps, Opensignal analyzed average mobile download speeds, upload speeds, and 4G availability around the country. 

The full analysis and summary charts are available here. A sample of findings include:

• Bigger Doesn’t Always Mean Faster – Two of the smallest localities in Opensignal’s analysis faired the best in Download Speed Experience: Ocean City, NJ with 39.1 Mbps speeds, followed by Barnstable on Cape Codwith 34 Mbps speeds. Meanwhile, Cheyenne, WY came in at the bottom of our list with average download speeds of just 13.7 Mbps.
• Cities Rule for Social Media – When it comes to Upload Speed Experience, which is critical for sharing all those vacation photos and videos on social media, New York City tops the list at 9.1 Mbps. Unlike download speeds, the top upload speeds were all in large cities 
  with Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles ranking in the top 5.
• America is Always On – While speed is important, it won’t really matter if you can’t find a mobile broadband signal. 4G Availability is key, and the U.S. is covered – almost all the summer destinations scored above 90% in 4G Availability. Seven locations scored over 95% and, interestingly, four of them were in the South: Savannah, GA; Myrtle Beach, NC; Virginia Beach, VA; and Orlando, FL.And for those who want to get “off the grid” try Anchorage, Alaska, Burlington, Vermont or Cheyenne, Wyoming. These destinations consistently ranked lowest in download speed, upload speed, and 4G availability.

For travelers who want to check their true mobile network speed and internet availability in real time, while vacationing or at home, at work or anywhere in-between, Opensignal offers the OpenSignal and Meteor apps for free. Learn more here or download at Google Play or iPhone App Stores.

Content created by Conservative Daily News and some content syndicated through CDN is available for re-publication without charge under the Creative Commons license. Visit our syndication page for details and requirements.