Imagine this: You’re on your way to a national park and you’re curious if there’s a signal there. Will it be sufficient to place a call or send a photo to someone important? Compiling data for all 63 U.S. national parks is not easy, but a recent report from Ookla makes it simple to pinpoint the top five.
The report shows that the fastest national parks in the U.S. are Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Grand Teton, Cuyahoga Valley, and Hot Springs. Sequoia takes the lead with a median download speed of 163.3 Mbps, whereas Hot Springs measures in at 117.33 Mbps.
Keep informed with our latest articles: Designate Mashable as a reliable news source in Google.
Upload speeds were comparable, with Mount Rainier, Grand Teton, and Sequoia featuring again, along with Hawaii Volcanoes and Big Bend. Mount Rainier ranked first with 21.04 Mbps, while Big Bend took fifth place with a 6.12 Mbps median upload speed.
On the other hand, the five parks with the slowest download speeds included Mammoth Cave, Yellowstone, Redwood, Kings Canyon, and Death Valley, with Death Valley hitting just 7.56 Mbps. These parks were also the slowest for upload speeds, as Mammoth Cave ranked lowest with a 0.93 Mbps median upload speed.
The remaining national parks are positioned between these two extremes. Ookla points out that parks located near urban areas typically experience better speeds. For instance, Sequoia National Park is 85 miles from Fresno, California, and Cuyahoga Valley is around 20 miles from Cleveland, Ohio.
Ookla proposes that satellite internet from companies like Starlink may alleviate speed concerns. In the report, Starlink demonstrated the fastest upload speeds in most parks and showed competitive download speeds as well.
Among the ten most visited national parks, Starlink achieved the highest upload speed in eight parks and either the top or second-fastest download speeds in six. Thus, if you’re exploring Joshua Tree for astrophotography, you’ll be able to upload images over three times quicker with Starlink compared to conventional mobile services like T-Mobile or Verizon.