College Towns Where Internet Speeds Make the Grade (And Where They Fail)

It’s back to school time in the United States, and for many freshmen that means traveling to a brand new town to start your education. To help you know if the internet will be a help or a hindrance as you earn your degree, we analyzed internet performance in 100 college towns across the U.S. This list includes Speedtest Intelligence® data on median download and upload speeds from 100 towns with a large percentage of students where college is a major part of the industry.

While we worked to include a wide variety of college towns on our list, the list is far from comprehensive. If you’d like to see your school on the list next year, please take a Speedtest® then send your result to us via Twitter or Facebook. You can also start your college life on a responsible note by using our new Speedtest Performance Directory™ to check out expected speeds for internet service providers before you sign up for an extended contract.

College towns with the best (and worst) internet speeds

If you started your college search by looking for the top of the top, you’ll relate to the next three sections that highlight the college towns with the fastest speeds on 5G, all mobile technologies combined, and fixed broadband. By choosing a school in a town with great internet speeds, you’re giving yourself access to the fastest streaming and gaming experiences (and good performance for any online classes to boot). We’ve also included the locations with the slowest speeds. While you’ll see college towns broken out by population later in this article, these three sections combined data from all 100 schools on our list.

College towns with A+ and F- 5G speeds

With median download speeds over 300 Mbps, Manhattan, KansasClemson, South Carolina; and College Park, Maryland topped our list of college towns with the fastest 5G in the U.S. during Q2 2022. Auburn, Alabama and Troy, New York rounded out the top five. Students in these places have every advantage when using 5G phones for school or play.

On the other end of the spectrum, Bowling Green, KentuckyFayetteville, ArkansasBlacksburg, VirginiaCheney, Washington; and Morgantown, West Virginia had the slowest download speeds over 5G. Students in these locations may want to consider if 5G is even worth the extra investment. Check the lists below to see how 5G performance compares to mobile performance on all technologies. It’s likely that the 5G performance will get better with time, but there’s no need to stretch your budget for a service that isn’t delivering in your area.

Overall mobile performance in college towns is sufficient

Tigers rejoice, because Clemson, South Carolina was among the fastest college towns for mobile on our list with a median download speed of 175.77 Mbps during Q2 2022. Tempe, ArizonaKent, Ohio; College Park, Maryland; and Providence, Rhode Island filled out the top five. These towns all have excellent download speeds, far ahead of the 59.89 Mbps median mobile download speed in the U.S. during July 2022, according to the Speedtest Global Index™. In all, 52 of the college towns on our list showed a median download speed above this during Q2 2022.

Bennington, Vermont; Socorro, New Mexico; Kearney, Nebraska; Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Hanover, New Hampshire had the slowest download speeds on our list. While the download speeds in these places should be adequate for most phone uses, you probably won’t want to rely on tethering your mobile device to your computer for internet access.

Most college towns have acceptable fixed broadband speeds

Grambling, Louisiana topped our list of college towns with a median download speed over fixed broadband of 333.65 Mbps during Q2 2022. Home to the HBCU Grambling State University, Grambling is a small town in north central Louisiana, and Grambling was 14% faster than Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the next fastest college town. Dover, DelawareChapel Hill, North Carolina; and Manchester, New Hampshire completed our list of top five fastest college towns for fixed broadband. Forty-seven out of the 100 college towns on our list had a Q2 2022 median download speed over fixed broadband that was faster than the median for the U.S. (159.31 Mbps) in July 2022, according to the Speedtest Global Index.

The slowest college towns on our list were Socorro, New Mexico; Cheney, Washington; Oberlin, Ohio; Tuskegee, Alabama; and Brookings, South Dakota. While the download speed in all but Socorro is within the acceptable range for most uses, anyone connecting more than one device at a time to a router (hello roommates!) is going to struggle with internet performance in these places.

Internet performance in large college towns

Everyone has a different college dream. Our “large college towns” list is for students who want more of a city experience than a town, with 19 locations that have 100,000 or more residents but still retain that college town feel. If your favorite college town is actually a suburb of a larger metropolitan area, look for that list below.

Manchester, New Hampshire; Huntsville, AlabamaLincoln, Nebraska; and Providence, Rhode Island form the top of the list for large college towns with fast median download speeds over fixed broadband during Q2 2022. All four are home to multiple colleges and universities whose students can benefit from these super fast speeds. Even Columbia, Missouri, the place with the lowest median download speed on this list, exceeds the FCC minimum recommendation for broadband of 25 Mbps download. However, 10 of the cities on this list had lower speeds than the U.S. median of 159.31 Mbps in July 2022.

On mobile, Tempe, Arizona and Providence, Rhode Island had the fastest median download speeds among our large college towns list during Q2 2022. In all, eight of the colleges on this list had a median download speed over mobile during Q2 2022 that exceeded the U.S. median of 59.89 Mbps during July 2022. College Station, Texas; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Lincoln, Nebraska; Macon, Georgia; and Columbia, Missouri had the lowest mobile speeds on our list of large college towns, each coming in below 50 Mbps for median download speed.

Medium-sized college towns with fast internet speeds

College students looking for a slightly slower lifestyle might enjoy our medium-sized college town list. This list includes 26 locations where college is a major industry, there are 50,000-100,000 residents, and the city is not part of another metropolitan area.

Dover, Delaware; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Rock Hill, South Carolina top the list of medium-sized college towns with fast fixed broadband speeds during Q2 2022. Eleven of the 26 places on this list exceeded the median download speed for fixed broadband in the U.S. (159.31 Mbps) during July 2022. Conway, ArkansasGrand Forks, North Dakota; and Lawrence, Kansas had the slowest median download speeds over fixed broadband on this list during Q2 2022. While all three cities showed faster speeds than the FCC recommendation of 25 Mbps, students looking to use more than one device at a time (or to share an internet connection) may soon find the limits of these speeds.

Dover, Delaware led for mobile download speed on our list of medium-sized college towns during Q2 2022. Only nine of 26 places showed a faster median download speed over mobile during Q2 2022 than the U.S. median of 59.89 Mbps in July 2022. Bowling Green, Kentucky and Bozeman, Montana had the slowest median download speeds over mobile on this list. The speeds in these two places are still sufficient for ordinary use, but students will likely want to rely on fixed broadband for activities that require better performance (like opening 100 tabs to research a paper).

Small college towns with big internet performance

If you’ve always dreamed of living in a small town where the entire community seems to revolve around college life, our list of 29 small college towns might be where your heart lies. This list includes places with fewer than 50,000 residents where the college makes up a large part of the economy and the towns aren’t counted as part of a larger metropolitan area.

The Tigers led for fixed broadband and mobile speeds with Grambling, Louisiana (home of Grambling State University) easily topping the list of small college towns with fast fixed broadband (with a median download speed of 333.65 Mbps during Q2 2022). On the mobile side, Clemson, South Carolina (home of Clemson University) eclipsed the competition for download speed with a median of 175.77 Mbps.

Only eight of the 29 small college towns on our list bested the 159.31 Mbps median download speed for fixed broadband in the U.S. during July 2022. For mobile, 11 small college towns exceeded the 59.89 Mbps median download speed for the U.S.

Socorro, New Mexico had the slowest median download speed over fixed broadband by far, well under the FCC suggested 25 Mbps, and Socorro also placed among the slowest for mobile download speed. Looking at mobile, Bennington, Vermont had the lowest median download speed among small college towns. Students with mobile speeds this slow may need to lean heavily on their fixed broadband for both study and play.

Suburban college towns benefit from big city internet infrastructure

Sometimes you want a college town experience with easy access to the amenities of a big city. That’s where our list of suburban college towns comes in; large or small, each of the 26 places on this list is college-driven but is also close enough to (or part of) a major metropolitan area.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and New Brunswick, New Jersey had the fastest median download speeds on fixed broadband among our list of suburban college towns during Q2 2022. Kent, Ohio; College Park, Maryland; Troy, New York; and Waukesha, Wisconsin topped our list of mobile speeds in suburban college towns, each coming in with a median download speed above 100 Mbps during Q2 2022.

Proximity to the big city pays off for most of these locations with 16 of 26 suburban college towns showing a Q2 2022 median download speed faster than the 159.31 Mbps median for the U.S. during July 2022. The big city infrastructure effect was even more evident for mobile with 24 of 26 suburban college towns beating the 59.89 Mbps U.S. median for mobile speeds during July 2022.

Oberlin, Ohio had the slowest download speed by far of the suburban college towns we analyzed. While the 56.76 Mbps median speed beats the FCC broadband threshold of 25 Mbps, two or more devices trying to use a connection at that speed could struggle with mission critical activities like video calls home to the parents or the ex you left behind. Oberlin also placed at the bottom for mobile speeds along with Madison, New Jersey, the only two suburban college towns not to exceed the U.S. median.

We were pleased, for the most part, with the internet and mobile speeds we saw in U.S. college towns. There are a lot of options for schools in towns with fast connections and a couple where you could fall off the grid (should you so choose). Did we leave your college town off our list or are you seeing a radically different result in your college town? Take a Speedtest® on Android or iOS and tweet us your feedback. You can also check month-by-month performance for your town and compare expected speeds for internet providers in our new Speedtest Performance Directory.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article/press release are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the approved policy or position of the GSMA or its subsidiaries.

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