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In the new RootMetrics survey, which covers the first half of the year, for overall wireless service in the nation’s 125 most populous markets, Atlanta and Chicago easily finished at the top. On the other end of the spectrum, New York’s Hudson Valley and Reno were at the bottom of the list.

The research firm’s management says that the mobile networks performance tests cover speed, reliability, call quality, voice, texts and data.

At the top of the list, beyond Atlanta and Chicago, were Knoxville, Nashville and Jacksonville. At the bottom, rounding out the five are Omaha, Colorado Springs and El Paso.

RootMetrics also provided scores for the very largest metros:

New York City and the Tri-State Area easily has the most people of any metro area in America. But New York City mobile performance wasn’t anything to brag about. New York City and the Tri-State Area fell to the bottom half of our rankings in five of six categories, including an Overall Performance ranking of 74 (out of 125). Los Angeles has no room to brag, however. The nation’s second largest metro area finished below New York in almost every category, including ranking #89 for Overall Performance.

Rounding out the list of the largest metros, Miami finished in the 72nd spot, Philadelphia was 39th, Dallas 27th, Houston 22nd, Washington D.C. 67th and Boston 69th.

Faring less well among the largest metros:

The only large-sized city ranked near the bottom of our most recent metro area comparison was Denver. The nation’s 18^th-largest metro area, Denver finished as #122 for Network Speed and #121 for Data Performance in our mobile performance rankings.

While Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile US Inc. (NYSE: TMUS) were not mentioned in the current survey, RootMetrics has a measure for these that will come out shortly.

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