Opensignal recently announced that wireless carrier T-Mobile won its third consecutive 5G Download Speed award. The independent mobile analytics company said its T-Mobile users saw average 5G download speeds of 87.5 Mbps, surpassing its AT&T and Verizon users, which both saw speeds of 52.3 Mbps.
“Our T-Mobile users’ average 5G download speed has increased by an impressive 16.3 Mbps compared to our April 5G report, and 29.4 Mbps compared to our January 5G report,” Opensignal said. “By comparison, our users on AT&T saw their average 5G download speeds reduce by 2.7 Mbps since our last report, while our uses on Verizon experienced a 4.5 Mbps improvement.”
T-Mobile also dominated Opensignal’s 5G Availability and 5G Reach tests. The company’s T-Mobile users were connected to 5G 36.3% of the time (AT&T and Verizon users were connected to 5G 22.5% and 10.5% of the time, respectively.). Meanwhile, T-Mobile won Opensignal’s 5G Reach Award with a score of 7.1 out of a 10-point scale. 5G Reach represents the proportion of locations where 5G users have connected to the network out of all of the locations, they’ve visited.
“Independent network reports continue to show T-Mobile is the best choice for speedy and reliable 5G coverage across the country,” Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile said in a statement. “We built T-Mobile’s 5G network with broad coverage, high capacity and low latency to fuel innovation and bring transformative 5G experiences to customers. This is how you build the best 5G network in the country, and we’re just getting started.”
Verizon, AT&T have strong showings in other 5G areas
T-Mobile did not have a clean sweep in Opensignal’s 5G awards. Both AT&T and Verizon outpaced T-Mobile in the 5G Video Experience category. AT&T and Verizon scored 61.3 and 61.2 points, respectively, while T-Mobile placed third with 54.8 points. Video experience quantifies the video quality streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over the carriers’ networks.
“While last time AT&T was the only carrier to see its 5G Video Experience score increase compared to the previous report, this time our users on all three U.S. carriers saw their average experience decline,” Opensignal said. “Our users on AT&T saw the largest decrease of 3.9 points, while Verizon and T-Mobile saw their scores reduce by 2.0 and 1.7 points respectively. AT&T and Verizon placed in the ‘Good’ category (55-65 points), while T-Mobile missed it by 0.2 points and placed in the ‘Fair’ category (40-55 points).”
Verizon also claimed a pair of awards on its own—the 5G Games Experience Award and 5G Voice App Experience. Verizon users saw an improvement in their 5G gaming experience from Opensignal’s previous report, while AT&T and T-Mobile users saw their experience scores fall. Meanwhile, Verizon overtook AT&T in the 5G Voice App Experience Category with 83.3 points to AT&T’s 82.4.
Opensignal’s 5G Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services, such as mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger when users are connected to a 5G network. All three carriers scored in the ‘Good’ category (80-87 points). That means that many users were satisfied even though some experienced minor quality impairments like clicking sounds or distortions were very occasionally present.
“While there are some new 5G winners in this report, overall Opensignal’s awards table has seen few changes since our previous report,” Opensignal said. “T-Mobile maintains a clear edge on our two measures of a network’s extent — 5G Availability and 5G Reach — as well as a firm lead on 5G Download Speed and 5G Upload Speed. On the other hand, we keep seeing a two-horse race between AT&T and Verizon for our three experiential measures — 5G Video Experience, 5G Games Experience and 5G Voice App Experience.”
Joe Dyton can be reached at joed@fifthgenmedia.com.
