Opensignal lists places such as Houston, Waco and San Antonio as districts where 5G has 30-34% availability. By contrast Utica in New York state has just 10.8% availability, says the research company.
Utica, in the north of the state close to Lake Ontario, appears to be an outlier. “The state of New York had the fastest 5G download speed and best 5G games experience, and was in the top third of the table for 5G availability and 5G video experience,” says the report, written by senior analyst Francesco Rizzato.
Opensignal included 250 cities across all 50 states in this new study, carried out automatically by users who have signed up to Opensignal’s app.
“While 5G was present to some extent everywhere, the quality of 5G experience varied significantly. Our 5G users on the East Coast generally had a better 5G experience, followed by users on the West Coast and in the Great Lakes region.”
Chicago (pictured), on the shore of Lake Michigan, came second in the survey for availability – just behind the cities of McAllen, Edinburg and Mission, on Texas’s border with Mexico.
Users in Illinois – which includes Chicago – and Texas spent more time connected to 5G than the rest of the country, says Opensignal.
However, Opensignal identifies the states where 5G is barely available at all. “South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming and Maine tied in 45th place with their scores ranging between 11.2% and 12.4%, while New Hampshire followed in second-last place with a 10% 5G availability,” writes Rizzato.
“We observed the lowest score in Vermont, where our 5G users spent just 5.7% of their time with an active 5G connection, which was one fifth of the 5G availability our users experienced in Texas and Illinois.”
But if you can get a 5G signal, it’s likely to be good for watching video, says the survey: “5G users in all states except for Alaska experience a good 5G video experience.” In Alaska it was only “fair”.
