Need Blazing-Fast Internet on Campus? Head to Kansas or South Carolina

Are you living on or near campus this semester? Hoping to supplement those late-night study sessions with Netflix binges and game streaming? Are some of your classes online? You’ll want to make sure the networks in your area will hold up when you need them most.

Ookla used its Speedtest Intelligence(Opens in a new window) data to determine the college towns with the fastest (and slowest) internet speeds for students using cellular networks and fixed broadband networks.

If you’ve upgraded to a 5G phone, expect blazing speeds at Kansas State University. 5G speeds in Manhattan, Kansas, measured an average 324.14Mbps on 5G speed tests during Q2 2022, making it the best overall college town for 5G speeds. Rounding out the top five were Clemson, S.C.; College Park, Md.; Auburn, Ala., and Troy, NY. “Students in these places have every advantage when using 5G phones for school or play,” Ookla concluded.

On the other hand, your 5G phone may be a brick in Bowling Green, Ky., home to Western Kentucky University, which averaged 47.76Mbps for downloads. Fayetteville, Ark.; Blacksburg, Va.; Cheney, Wash.; and Morgantown, WV also had poor 5G performance. “Students in these locations may want to consider if 5G is even worth the extra investment,” Ookla says.

When looking at mobile performance overall, 4G and 5G, Clemson comes out on top with a median download speed of 175.77Mbps during Q2 2022, followed by Tempe, Ariz.; Kent, Ohio; College Park, Md.; and Providence, RI.

“These towns all have excellent download speeds, far ahead of the 59.89Mbps median mobile download speed in the US during July 2022, according to the Speedtest Global Index,” according to Ookla. “In all, 52 of the college towns on our list showed a median download speed above this during Q2 2022.”

Bennington, Vermont, home to Pennington College and Southern Vermont College, had the worst mobile performance at 17.25Mbps.

If you’d prefer not to use all your phone data and want to tap into a fixed broadband connection on campus, look no further than Grambling, Louisiana. Home to Grambling State University, the town averaged 333.65Mbps on Ookla’s Speedtest. Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Dover, Del.; and Manchester, NH also performed well on the broadband test.

Oberlin College in Ohio, South Dakota State University in Brookings, and Tuskegee University in Alabama, however, ranked among the lowest in fixed broadband speeds.

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Disclosure: Ookla is owned by PCMag’s parent company, Ziff Davis.