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Written by: Ian Markowitz
While no one would deny that WiFi will give you faster speeds than a cellular network, with the Verizon Wireless USB727 modem in hand, I decided to find out just how much faster it would be. Thanks to Google, Logan and several other airports across the country have free WiFi through mid-January, so while sitting at gate A17 waiting for my flight, I figured I would test both the free WiFi and the Verizon network to see who gave me the better connection.
First up was the Boingo WiFi (sponsored by Google for the holidays). The speeds which I was received were 0.90 Mb/s download and 1.20 Mb/s upload. Pretty pitiful for a land based WiFi connection, while faster than dial-up, it likely wouldn’t even come close to the DSL or cable internet speeds you receive at home. More surprisingly however was the performance i received from the Verizon modem. Using the same method for testing, I received 2.73 Mb/s download speeds and 2.45 Mb/s upload. I was quite surprised as I had expected for sure that the WiFi would have at least been marginally faster than the Verizon network but apparently I was wrong.
Couple notes on coverage for this week. I’ve been invited to some product demos and been told about some products being unveiled this week that I can’t discuss quite yet, but I will be sure to publish updates here when I can. Keep the emails and requests coming!
Note: The testing was conducted using speedtest.net using the server in Burlington, VT for both connections. For some reason, the Verizon network card couldn’t perform the tests using the Boston, MA server because the latency file wouldn’t download correctly. It is worth mentioning that because the WiFi is currently free, the network was experiencing much heavier usage than normal. Additionally, at other areas of the terminal (the food court for example), I received network speeds around 1.75 Mb/s download and 2.25 Mb/s upload, however since we’re comparing Apples to Apples, I had to compare network speeds from the same location.
Ian can be reached at markowi_ian (AT) bentley.edu
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