New Yorkers this year can expect fast service at O’Reilly’s Pub & Restaurant, the Kinsale Tavern and Cassidy’s Pub

MARCH 17, 2015 – DULLES, VA — For this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration, New Yorkers can expect Irish pubs across the city to be packed to the brim with festive types of all kinds—but can they expect a fast and reliable network performance with their smartphones?

Global Wireless Solutions, Inc. (GWS), a leading network benchmarking firm, conducted a test across 20 popular Irish pubs in Manhattan to identify the fastest “selfie” upload times, video upload times, song download times, video download times, and overall task reliability across the four major US carriers: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. GWS also created an interactive map plotting the various pubs across Manhattan and comparing performance across locations with social mapping app MapHook.

New York has always been a central hub of celebration on St. Patrick’s Day, with the city hosting an annual parade in recognition of the holiday for more than 200 years. Thousands visit to take part in the daylong event, frequently taking their festivities to some of Manhattan’s most popular Irish pubs. And, with the firm cultural adoption of smartphones and businesses continually pushing a mobile-first platform, a number of activities that happen at pubs today involve the use of phones—from coordinating dates and meet-ups to uploading an image or loading a video from YouTube.

“We live in an increasingly mobile-centric world. Today, mobile networks serve as a main touch point between businesses and consumers,” says Dr. Paul Carter, CEO of GWS. “We wanted to gauge wireless performance across popular pubs ahead of St. Patrick’s Day to see whether or not consumers can expect a frictionless experience, and while performance overall was rather strong, there are some clear winners and losers. Today our social lives depend on a strong mobile connection; we expect to send a simple image, text, or video to a friend hassle-free—a necessity when we’re in the midst of celebration!”

Ranking network performance across 20 popular Irish pubs in Manhattan

Network performance rankings across locations were determined by averaging carrier upload and download speeds, as well as overall task reliability. During the testing period, GWS found that 18 out of the 20 pubs tested used LTE across all carriers, indicating that, overall, carriers have done a thorough job in upgrading their networks throughout Manhattan.

The key performance indicators provided in the following table were taken from benchmark tests completed at popular Irish pubs in Manhattan—locations selected were determined by Google and Yelp reviews.

Length of time to upload a 2MB selfie, upload a 4MB video, download a 4MB song file, and download a 20MB video while in the main lobby of an Irish pub in Manhattan. All times are in seconds:

Pub Selfie Upload Video Upload Song Download HD Video Download
Blarney Rock Pub 9 22 4 10
Cassidy’s Pub 3 5 4 16
Connolly’s Pub & Restaurant 5 9 4 11
Dublin 6 4 7 3 10
Emmett O’Lunney’s 8 15 3 12
Gabby O’Hara’s 20 54 20 61
Kinsale Tavern 3 5 4 11
McGee’s 5 8 3 8
Molloy’s Irish Pub 11 32 5 14
Molly’s 4 6 3 12
O’Brien’s 14 39 9 21
O’Hara’s 4 8 3 11
O’Lunney’s 10 21 5 16
O’Reilly’s Off Fifth 9 18 3 11
O’Reilly’s Pub & Restaurant 3 5 2 7
Playwright Celtic Pub 7 15 8 21
Scallywag’s Irish Pub 3 6 9 29
The Irish American Pub 39 85 14 60
Tir Na Nog (Penn Plaza) 5 9 8 22
Tír Na Nóg (W 39 St) 10 17 14 40

As demonstrated in the data, after breaking from the parade, party goers can expect:

  • In 50 percent of the tested pubs, beer connoisseurs and social media magnates can upload their beer selfies in five seconds or less.
  • In 50 percent of the tested pubs, party revelers can upload a video of their festive antics in ten seconds or less.
  • In 13 out of 20 tested pubs, Irish music aficionados can download a song in five seconds or less to drown out the always blaring top 40 tracks
  • In 4 out of 20 tested pubs, river dancers that want to demonstrate to their friends how to do a proper jig can download an HD video in ten seconds or less.
  • GWS also measured network reliability at all locations and found that pub patrons can expect very reliable data service – 19 of the 20 pubs tested averaged 98% or better reliability in completing upload and download tasks.

Methodology

GWS conducted this series of tests in order to evaluate the upload speed of a 2MB image (selfie), upload speed of a 4MB video, download speed of a 4MB song file, and download speed of a 20MB video on carrier networks at popular Irish pubs in Manhattan, determined through Google and Yelp reviews. The tests were conducted using Rohde & Schwarz’s SwissQual QualiPoc Freerider. The Freerider—a portable benchmarking system—was equipped with Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphones. The Freerider was operated by a trained GWS engineer who conducted the assessment tests and obtained upload and download speeds from the packet data networks of Tier 1 carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon). Testing was conducted between February 26 and March 2, 2015.

About Global Wireless Solutions, Inc.

Global Wireless Solutions, Inc. defines the industry standard for network benchmarking, analysis and testing. Working with some of the world’s largest wireless network providers, GWS offers standardized, high-quality network data and engineering analysis to its customers through a suite of benchmarking products and services, including drive, venue, and in-building testing.

Firmly rooted in a deep understanding of network engineering, GWS provides best-in-class, turnkey solutions to help customers better understand overall network performance as today’s wireless networks grow and evolve.

Founded in 1996, GWS is headquartered in Dulles, VA. At last count, GWS has driven more than 9 million data collection miles for its customers. For more information, visit www.gwsolutions.com and follow us on Twitter at @gwsolutionsinc.

Media Contact:

Global Wireless Solutions, Inc.

[email protected]

703-661-7000

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