Bostonians have seen a significant boost in their mobile performance over the last six months, but city-dwellers in New York and Los Angeles have been left hanging, according to the latest metro mobile performance report from RootMetrics.
As in previous tests, both Atlanta and Chicago finished strong within the top ten in the first half of 2016, coming in third and fifth place, respectively. But the two cities, which finished in first and second place for overall performance in the second half of 2015, were supplanted in the top slots by Lansing, Mich. and Indianapolis, Ind. Lansing was previously listed at number 14 overall.
The top five list for best cities for mobile performance was rounded out by Milwaukee, Wisc., in fourth place, the report said.
During the first half of 2016, Boston – which is the nation’s 10th most populated city – clocked the biggest improvement in performance, jumping from number 52 to number 17 in overall network performance. Particular areas of improvement within Boston included a jump in data ranking from number 47 to number 20 and a huge leap in reliability from number 76 to number 32.
Though performance also improved in New York City and the Tri-State Area, which ranked at number 76 in the last report, the metro area still only achieved a middling score of number 59 overall.
Network performance in Los Angeles, Calif., on the other hand, slipped five spots to number 99 thanks to bottom-of-the-pack scores in reliability. Performance in other major cities, like Dallas, Texas, and Miami, Fla., also sagged, with the former slipping out of the top ten to number 18 overall and the latter sliding from number 28 overall to number 84 in the latest round of testing.
The five worst metro areas for network performance remained fairly stable, with positions filled by the Hudson Valley, N.Y., Omaha, Neb., Scranton, Pa., Santa Rosa, Calif., and Lancaster Pa.
