Open Signal has recently released their state of Mobile Networks:USA " and say Verizon has now tied T-Mobile for the fastest carrier in the United States and the results are so close between the two that they are virtually tied for the best.
Using data collected from 169,683 users, 4,599,231,167 data points
were used to measure network speeds on both 4G and 3G, network
availability and latency. The data is collected by users installing the Open Signal app from Google Play or the App Store and going about their daily routine.
In their analysis of the collected data, they say that Verizon has improved their 4G network speeds to pull even with T-Mobile
who has traditionally done well in this category. They also mention
that the average overall network speeds in the U.S. have risen slightly,
and over 81% of U.S. residents have access to LTE networks.
The ‘Overall Network Comparison’ ties Verizon and T-Mobile together
in two categories: Download Speed: 4G, and Download Speed: Overall,
which we assume incorporates both 4G and 3G speeds. This would make
sense, given that T-Mobile’s 3G speeds (HSPA+) are much faster than
Verizon’s 3G (CDMA) speeds. T-Mobile beats Verizon in 3G speeds, and 3G
latency while Verizon has T-Mobile beat in 4G latency and 4G
availability.
T-Mobile won in two more categories that it didn’t tie with Verizon,
these two categories are both becoming more and more irrelevant as the
majority of users in the US are being almost (if not entirely) supported
by LTE signals as 3G technologies see less usage.
Back to the speeds, Verizon saw an average of 16.9 Mbps while
T-Mobile saw 16.7 Mbps in 4G data, close enough for a statistical tie
(higher HSPA+ (3G) speeds allowed both Verizon and T-Mobile to tie in
the overall speeds category with an average of 14.6 Mbps. Verizon and
AT&T saw a boost of about 1 Mbps over the last quarter, and while
T-Mobile stayed steady, Sprint’s network dropped slightly.
Availability of high-speed data services shows that all four carriers
have improved, but T-Mobile (86.6%) is now within two percentage points
of Verizon (88.2%) when it comes to finding an LTE signal. The company
with the most improvement here is Sprint, who jumped from covering 69.9% in August to 76.8% in February 2017.
Verizon or T-Mobile performed the best in every category tested, and
the final results show that any measurable advantage T-Mobile or Verizon
previously held in nationwide network testing has shrunk to the point
of being insignificant. You still need to pick the carrier service that
works bests for you, but overall either Red or Magenta should have you
covered.
The best part is that they now need to fight even harder for our dollars.
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