Memphis, Pittsburgh, Chicago O’Hare clock best airport cell service, San Francisco and San Diego score poorly

You can bet that your mobile phone will connect to data and voice service best if you happen to be flying through Memphis, Pittsburgh, or Chicago O’Hare. Those three airports (respectively) have the best cellular service environments of any of the top 50 U.S. airports, according to a new report from the wireless testing firm RootMetrics.

The report gave San Diego’s airport the distinction of having the worst service among country’s busiest airports. The world’s largest mobile chip maker, Qualcomm, is headquartered in San Diego.

Perhaps the most surprising finding in the RootMetrics analysis is that the airport near the seat of tech innovation in the U.S. — San Francisco International — could muster only the 45th best wireless service performance.

Nashville International, Miami International, and Philadelphia International placed 46th, 47th, and 48th, respectively.

The busiest airport in the U.S. — Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson —  came in seventh for overall mobile performance.

Among the wireless carriers, RootMetrics found that Verizon provided the fastest and most reliable mobile connections at the nation’s largest airports. RootMetrics says Verizon clocked median download speeds of 20 megabits per second (mbps) or higher at more airports (22) than any other carrier. Verizon recorded the fastest airport median download speed at 101.2 mbps at Chicago’s Midway International Airport.

RootMetrics notes that T-Mobile service has proved to be highly reliable at most airports. Tests recorded that T-Mobile service enabled web-based and app-based tasks to be successfully completed in more than 97 percent of all cases at 47 out of 50 airports. The carrier recorded web/app task success rates over 97 percent — an indication of data network reliability — at 47 out of 50 airports.

Southwest Florida International Airport came in fourth for mobile performance, and Dallas’s Love Field came in fifth. You can see the whole ranking here.