It’s back to school in the U.S., which can only mean it’s time for the college football season. We care about those long-standing rivalries as much as you do, and we couldn’t wait until game day to pit our favorite teams against each other. So we found a new angle for all that “my team is better than yours” energy: who has the fastest campus Wi-Fi speeds?

To get a pregame answer to “who’s the best?” we looked at download speed for all Wi-Fi Speedtest results. We limited data to those from the internet service provider (ISP) for each campus for the first half of 2018. For context, the average Wi-Fi download speed in the U.S. was 81.91 Mbps during Q1-Q2 2018.

Old Wagon Wheel (October 5, 2018)

Utah is home to the first big grudge match of the year and it’s here that we find Utah State’s Wi-Fi is more than twice as fast as BYU’s. Sorry, Cougars! It’s worth noting that Utah State has the fastest Wi-Fi of any campus discussed in this article. Utah State’s Wi-Fi is even 36.8% faster than the average Wi-Fi download speed for the state of Utah in Q1-Q2 2018.

Florida State–Miami (October 6, 2018)

Our next matchup pits the Florida State Seminoles against the Miami Hurricanes in a rivalry that’s often one of the most-watched football games. If you’re watching that game over Wi-Fi, though, you’ll want to do it from the Tallahassee campus because their Wi-Fi is 24.5% faster than what you’ll find at the University of Miami. Even though that’s 24.2% slower than the state of Florida’s average Wi-Fi speed of 75.96 Mbps during the same period.

Red River Showdown (October 6, 2018)

For over 100 years, the Oklahoma Sooners have been battling the Texas Longhorns. We can’t say who will win the THREE trophies awarded to the winner of this year’s game, but we can say that on the Wi-Fi front it’s Texas for the win (though both schools have speeds worth bragging about).

Third Saturday in October (October 20, 2018)

When Alabama’s Crimson Tide meets the Tennesseee Volunteers on the field in Knoxville this year, they will be coming from behind (at least when it comes to Wi-Fi speeds). That’s because the average download speed on the University of Tennessee campus network is 42.7% faster than at Alabama.

World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party (October 27, 2018)

What will the crowd be discussing as they tailgate in advance of the Florida-Georgia game? Georgia Bulldog fans might be bragging about their Wi-Fi speeds, which are 23.8% faster than those at the University of Florida. Don’t bring it up among the Florida Gators, though. Unless you want ‘em to get fighting mad.

Saban Bowl (November 3, 2018)

We already know from the Third Saturday in October that Wi-Fi speeds are a sore subject for Alabama fans. Hopefully they’ll have won the game against the Tennessee Volunteers because their Wi-Fi matchup with the LSU Tigers is even more brutal. The average download speed over Wi-Fi on the Louisiana State University network is 137.4% faster than on Alabama’s.

Bedlam Series (November 10, 2018)

The Oklahoma Sooners couldn’t beat the Texas Longhorns when it came to Wi-Fi download speed, but they’ve got the Oklahoma State Cowboys nicely handled with a 14.5% lead in this intrastate rivalry. Still, considering that the average Wi-Fi download speed for the state of Oklahoma was 67.58 Mbps during the same period, both these schools are doing well.

Big Game (November 17, 2018)

The California Golden Bears have met the Stanford Cardinal team on the field 120 times but we’re pretty sure this is the first time they’re face to face on Wi-Fi speeds. We were a little surprised to find how thoroughly California trounces Stanford with an 87.8% lead when it comes to download speed. For comparison, the state of California showed a mean Wi-Fi download speed of 87.71 Mbps in Q1-Q2 2018.

The Game (November 17, 2018)

If Wi-Fi was football (and we admit it’s not), it would take a hail mary for Harvard to beat Yale with Wi-Fi speeds like these. We’re not going to rub in this defeat by calculating the percentage here.

The Crosstown Showdown (November 17, 2018)

Yes, we know no one actually calls it this, but it’s catchy, right? We love to see a close match-up like this when it comes to Wi-Fi speeds. If download was the only determinant, the Victory Bell would be painted blue (this year) to honor UCLA’s win. Both schools well outpace L.A.’s average Wi-Fi download speed of 86.17 Mbps during the same period.

Apple Cup (November 23, 2018)

As Ookla’s headquarters are located in Seattle, this one’s personal for us. All dirt roads may lead to Pullman, but the office Dawgs have to concede that Wazzu has the better Wi-Fi download speed. With an average download speed of 94.34 Mbps over Wi-Fi for Washington state as a whole, both schools have some room to make up.

Civil War (November 23, 2018)

Oregon may lead this 124-year-old rivalry when it comes to football games, but the Oregon State Beavers have it when it comes to Wi-Fi download speed with a 66.6% lead over the Oregon Ducks. For comparison, the average Wi-Fi download speed in Oregon state was 82.25 Mbps during the same period.

Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate (November 24, 2018)

Clean, old-fashioned hate indeed. The Wi-Fi contest between Georgia and Georgia Tech is technically too close to call. Well done Georgia Bulldogs and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets! Both schools are relatively far behind the state of Georgia’s average of 80.02 Mbps for Wi-Fi downloads in Q1-Q2 2018.

Duel in the Desert (November 24, 2018)

If the Territorial Cup was awarded for fastest Wi-Fi, it would go to the Arizona Wildcats who have a 62.6% lead in download speed over the Arizona State Sun Devils (and the fourth fastest campus Wi-Fi of any school in this article). In case you’re wondering, the average Wi-Fi download speed in the state of Arizona was 83.71 during the same period.

Iron Bowl (November 24, 2018)

Poor Alabama, if you didn’t have so many rivalries… Auburn for the win here as the Tigers come in with a blazing fast Wi-Fi download speed on their campus network. At least Alabama’s Crimson Tide rocks football? The state of Alabama’s average download speed over Wi-Fi was 58.58 Mbps.

Notre Dame–USC (November 24, 2018)

We’re sorry to say that Notre Dame would not be awarded the Jeweled Shillelagh if this game was based on Wi-Fi speed, as the USC Trojans dominate with an 83.0% faster download speed on their campus network than the Fighting Irish.

Paul Bunyan’s Axe (November 24, 2018)

No one was worried about Wi-Fi when the Minnesota Golden Gophers and the Wisconsin Badgers first met on the field back in 1890. Wisconsin should start worrying now, though, because the download speed on Minnesota’s campus network is less than half of what Wisconsin enjoys.

Backyard Brawl (September 3, 2022)

You might have to wait until 2022 to watch the Pittsburgh Panthers kick off against the West Virginia Mountaineers, but we can tell you right now which of the two campuses has the fastest Wi-Fi: West Virginia University by 76.8%.

Texas–Texas A&M (in memoriam)

Unless there’s some conference rearrangement, we may never get to watch Texas A&M’s Aggies play the Texas Longhorns again. But this rivalry dies hard in Texas (and anywhere else fans bleed orange or maroon). If the campuses were to face off today using Wi-Fi download speed alone, the Longhorns would have it. Hook ‘em.

Both campuses do well to beat the state of Texas’s 88.85 Mbps average download speed over Wi-Fi.

A full look at the campus Wi-Fi standings

To understand where the campus Wi-Fi networks we examined rank overall, we compiled all the above results. Oregon State takes first place, Utah State second and Yale third. On the other end of the spectrum, the University of Alabama was in last place, Harvard was second to last and the University of Pittsburgh third to last.

Is your favorite team not listed here (ahem, Clemson, Michigan, Lehigh)? Take a Speedtest using the Wi-Fi on your campus network, and we’ll check back next year to see how the rivalries stack up.

Football’s biggest game is this weekend and we’re excited to hear if all the reported mobile and Wi-Fi investments at U.S. Bank Stadium are up to the challenge on Sunday. We’ll follow up on that next week, but in the meantime we’re limbering up by checking out mobile internet speeds at the Eagles’ and Patriots’ home stadiums over the season. We’re also offering a preview of the performance we’ve seen at U.S. Bank Stadium so far this season.

We looked at stadium speeds for August 1, 2017 through January 30, 2018 and compared speeds by carrier using Speed Score — a combined measure of each provider’s download and upload speed at the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles — on modern devices (i.e. not your grandfather’s flip phone).

Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles

If we were handicapping teams based on mobile speeds at their home fields, the Eagles would be in sore shape for Sunday. Although Verizon had the best speeds of the season, the carrier’s Speed Score at Lincoln Financial Field was 63.6% lower than it was at Gillette Stadium. Still, Verizon’s Speed Score was 59.2% higher than AT&T’s, 121.3% higher than Sprint’s and 220.7% higher than T-Mobile’s.

Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots go to win

The Patriots won’t need to stage one of their famous comebacks to claim a win for mobile internet speeds on their home turf. Looking at speeds at Gillette Stadium, Verizon wins again with the fastest Speed Score of them all. Add to that every major carrier had faster speeds here than they did in Philadelphia. Verizon was 174.4% faster in Foxborough than in Philly, AT&T was 25.2% faster, Sprint jumped 143.9% and T-Mobile saw a 173.0% increase in Speed Score when comparing their performance at Gillette Stadium with that at Lincoln Financial Field.

U.S. Bank Stadium, the place to be on Sunday

The U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis was designed with big events like Sunday’s football game in mind from the capacity, to the readerboards to the app. But what we’re really interested in is the tech. With Wi-Fi access points literally built into the railings, U.S. Bank Stadium should be the ideal place to live-stream any game or event. As for cellular, there’s a distributed antenna system that should keep fans connected.

Season internet speeds play-by-play

Examining internet performance at U.S. Bank Stadium for all home games during the regular stadium, the impressive speeds bode well for the big day.

Team cellular vs. team Wi-Fi

Cellular speeds at U.S. Bank Stadium far exceeded the U.S. average throughout the 2017 football season. On the date with the slowest speeds, September 24, downloads were still 62.6% faster than the average for the U.S. during that month and 5.9% faster than Minneapolis’s average download speed for September 2017.

Meanwhile, the Wi-Fi might be free at U.S. Bank Stadium and the average speed does exceed that of the free Wi-Fi we’ve seen at many North American airports, including LAX and JFK, but it’s still not as fast as we’d hoped. Especially given all the hype. Free Wi-Fi is a great resource to have, but in most cases you’ll get faster speeds using your mobile carrier’s network on game day.

Carrier performance

T-Mobile had the fastest Speed Score at U.S. Bank Stadium. On average, T-Mobile was 18.6% faster than Verizon, 65.1% faster than AT&T and 107.4% faster than Sprint.

What to expect during the big game

Our technical evangelist, Milan Milanović, dug a little deeper into some upgrades mobile carriers have been working on to make sure their networks are game-ready. Here’s what he found:

• AT&T’s upgrades include deploying over 800 antennas throughout the stadium, providing a more than 200% increase in capacity. Additional legacy spectrum assets have been refarmed (Band 5) and coupled with advanced LTE technologies. AT&T is expected to keep up with the increased traffic demand.
• Verizon has added 48% more antenna nodes at the stadium, which are largely invisible (tucked under the seats, handrails, etc.). In addition to over 50 MHz of deployed capacity, Verizon is activating Higher Order MIMO and Higher Order Modulation together with three-channel carrier aggregation. You could say Verizon has their game face on.
• Sprint’s network within the stadium also relies on 800 nodes and a distributed antenna system (DAS) powered by small cells. This will deliver 40 MHz of TDD capacity in the 2.5 GHz frequency band. Sprint will rely on two-channel carrier aggregation in the downlink to provide required downlink capacity. It will be interesting to see if this network configuration will be sufficient to support the inevitable spike in upload traffic, especially during halftime.
• T-Mobile has increased the node capacity within the stadium by a factor of 30 in addition to the already deployed 4×4 MIMO, 256 QAM and three-channel carrier aggregation LTE techniques. They have also allocated additional spectrum assets to LTE in order to provide 45 MHz of downlink capacity, upgraded backhaul at and around the event and centralized radio access technology by the way of uplink CoMP (Coordinated Multipoint). This centralized radio access technology is designed to improve uplink data rates and network efficiency, with the added benefit of extending a smartphone’s battery life.

His assessment for fans on the big day? Bring your best devices for the best performance (for you and others). Users with smartphones equipped with four receive antennas will be able to experience the fastest speeds possible. In the process, they’ll also contribute to higher network efficiency by virtue of more quickly completing tasks that improve spectrum resource utilization and therefore the overall capacity of the network. Sunday’s event will also be a test of which operator has most aggressively seeded these highly efficient handsets into the hands of consumers.

Game day stats

You’ve probably seen the wide swing in reported speeds from the big game, and, now that Eagles fans have almost recovered from Sunday’s celebration, we’re here to set the record straight.

Cellular speeds

Looking at speeds at U.S. Bank Stadium between 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Sunday, we found that the mean cellular download speed at the stadium was faster than we’d seen at any game, all season long. Not a lot faster, but, given the 7.2 terabytes of data used during Sunday’s game, we’re impressed.

Which carrier won?

Comparing carriers based on Speed Score between 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Sunday, T-Mobile not only came out on top, but they trounced their season average, with a 31.2% jump in speeds. T-Mobile’s game-winning Speed Score was also 96.0% faster than runner-up AT&T who came in second and saw a 10.5% increase in speeds on game day.

Despite significant efforts on the technology side, the other two major carriers saw declines in Speed Scores on the big day. Verizon Wireless came in third and saw a 31.3% decrease from their season average while Sprint’s fourth-place finish was 21.1% slower than their all-season number.

How ‘bout that Wi-Fi?

We could not find any Speedtest results on “#USBANKSTADIUM”, the stadium’s reported Wi-Fi SSID, which leads us to believe that the powers that be switched the SSID to “#SBFAN” for the big event. If this is the case, the game day Wi-Fi download speed at U.S. Bank Stadium was in the low to mid range of what we saw during the rest of the season.

Was the big game worth the big investment? Likely. Huge crowds hungry to share the experience on social media can clog up networks and destroy cellular speeds. We’ll be interested to see how this year’s performance changes carriers’ playbooks for 2019.!

More than 65,000 people watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers live at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami yesterday. All those fans on their phones sharing the halftime experience with folks back home used massive amounts of data as they livestreamed and posted to social media. Every year this event presents a major challenge to mobile operators who this year added 5G to the mix. We’re here to report on which operator had the fastest speeds and the lowest latency on game day and what indoor coverage looked like in the Miami area.

Mobile operators had their game face on

This is no ordinary sporting event, and operators have been working for many months on their playbooks for providing the best possible performance at Hard Rock Stadium. Highlights include:

• Inside the stadium, AT&T has upgraded their distributed antenna system (DAS) to support 5G and band 14 spectrum to increase LTE capacity by 300% and support first responders. They’ve also deployed 6 cell on wheels (COWs) and upgraded or added DAS at 29 locations around Miami.
• T-Mobile more than doubled 4G LTE capacity at Hard Rock Stadium and deployed mmWave-based 5G in select locations at the stadium and around the city. This builds on the 600 MHz 5G launched across the city in December.
• Sprint is using a “split mode” for LTE and 5G in Hard Rock Stadium with an 1,800+ antenna DAS to handle LTE while 5G will be transmitted over Massive MIMO. Sprint also used Massive MIMO to add 5G in select locations around the city to the infrastructure improvements they’ve been working on in Miami.
• Verizon installed 5G nodes at event venues, added capacity to 280+ existing cell sites and enhanced performance across Miami with nearly 30 in-building solutions. These improvements came on top of investments Verizon has made in and around the stadium in the past two years.

Verizon Wireless’s download speeds beat out competitors’

We compared the big four U.S. mobile operators from two hours prior to kick-off to 30 minutes after the game ended to see who won. Here’s what we saw:

Overall Cellular Performance at Hard Rock Stadium

Speedtest^® Data | February 2, 2020

Sprint’s home team might have won the game, but Verizon triumphed when it came to mobile download speeds, coming in 143.7% faster than second-place T-Mobile when considering Speedtest® results over all technologies. Sprint had the third fastest mean download speed in this category and AT&T came in fourth.

Focusing on their 5G game really helped Verizon take the day when considering overall speeds as T-Mobile had the fastest mean download speed (66.35 Mbps) on LTE. Sprint was second on LTE with a mean download speed of 56.16 Mbps, AT&T third at 39.18 Mbps and Verizon fourth at 30.67 Mbps. We break out 5G speeds for each operator below.

T-Mobile’s mean upload speed over all technologies was far better than competitors’. Upload speed is especially important at big events like this as fans try to share their game day experience with those not in the stadium.

T-Mobile also had the lowest latency, coming in 26.0% faster than second-place AT&T. Sprint was third for latency and Verizon fourth.

For comparison, the mean download speed over mobile in the U.S. in January 2020 was 41.23 Mbps, upload was 10.55 Mbps and latency was 46 ms.

5G for the win

5G is the biggest story in mobile these days, and all four operators came prepared to deliver their best game to customers with 5G-capable phones and compete for bragging rights during this high profile event.

5G Performance at Hard Rock Stadium

Speedtest^® Data | February 2, 2020

Verizon easily beat T-Mobile and Sprint when it came to mean download speed over 5G during the big game. Verizon came in last, however, for both mean upload speed over 5G and latency. T-Mobile showed the fastest mean upload speed over 5G and Sprint had the best latency on 5G. While we did see 5G Speedtest results for AT&T during the game, there were fewer than 10, the minimum threshold we set for this event.

Hard Rock Stadium Wi-Fi was a viable option

In 2019, fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta used over 24 TB of data on the stadium Wi-Fi network on game day with an average Wi-Fi download speed of 30.98 Mbps. To get a baseline on the Miami experience, we looked at Wi-Fi performance during the Bengals v. Dolphins matchup on December 22, 2019.

Wi-Fi Performance at Hard Rock Stadium

Speedtest^® Data | February 2, 2020

Wi-Fi at the stadium did show some game day stresses yesterday, with a mean download speed 33.7% slower than the December 22 game. Mean upload speed dropped 25.7% and latency was up 28.6%.

Verizon also provided Wi-Fi for their customers during the big game yesterday, and the mean download speed was comparable to that on the stadium’s SSID. Mean upload speed on Verizon’s SSID was 12.1% slower than on the stadium’s, but Verizon’s Wi-Fi latency was also lower, showing a 22.2% improvement over stadium Wi-Fi.

It’s worth noting that mean upload speed in all cases was faster than that on download. This is impressive and helpful to fans trying to livestream their experience for friends back home.

Indoor mobile coverage in Miami

Stadium speed is very important, however most attendees will spend the bulk of their time in hotels and at tourist attractions in and around Miami. We used Cell Analytics^™ to assess indoor coverage at 9,128 buildings in the Miami metro area during Q3-Q4 2019 to see who had good indoor coverage (signal strength of greater than -115 dBm) in the most buildings.

Indoor Mobile Coverage in Miami Metro Area

Cell Analytics^TM Data | Q3-Q4 2019

Verizon showed good coverage in more buildings than any other operator at 97.7%, followed by T-Mobile at 97.2%, AT&T at 94.2% and Sprint at 92.5%.

We also examined who had the best coverage in each building and found that T-Mobile provided the strongest coverage in 36.9% of buildings analyzed. Verizon had the strongest coverage in 29.1% of buildings analyzed, AT&T was strongest in 22.7%, and finally Sprint was strongest in 11.2%.

Learn how Ookla® can help you determine if your network is prepared for the massive crowds that accompany a marquee event and analyze how your network performs both indoors and out, down to the building level.