AT&T defeated rivals Verizon Wireless and Sprint at yesterday's Super Bowl almost as soundly as the Seattle Seahawks bested the Denver Broncos, according to a test of cellular data performance.

AT&T provided average throughput of 5.3Mbps down and 2.9Mbps up, while Verizon and Sprint couldn't even manage half that according to tests by Nexgen Wireless. It wasn't all good news for AT&T, though, as its network completed a lower percentage of voice calls than either Verizon or Sprint.

The tests yesterday were conducted in six sequences before, during, and at the end of the game in various seating areas and levels of the stadium, both indoors and outdoors. Each sequence took about 28 minutes and included 10 calls of about 20 seconds each; three calls of about two minutes each; playback of a two-minute YouTube video; uploads of 20MB and 10MB files; and 100 ping tests. While the networks varied in percentage of calls completed, none of the networks dropped any calls after they were completed.

Average data speeds and ping latency are shown in the following chart, along with percentage of voice calls completed:

"AT&T was the clear winner with a big advantage on their data network over Verizon and Sprint," Nexgen Wireless said when announcing the results. "Sprint won in the Voice category but with a much more narrow margin than what was seen in data. Verizon placed second in both categories. The results showed that AT&T was the best prepared for the traffic they encountered at this event."

Nexgen evaluated the networks using Samsung Galaxy S3 devices and Accuver XCAL data collection software.

T-Mobile US wasn't included in the test because its "file structure wasn't compatible with the Accuver data collection software," a Nexgen spokesperson told us. The company expects to be able to evaluate all four major US carriers in future tests. The carriers were aware of the tests but didn't have any influence over them, according to Nexgen.

Nexgen, a maker of network analytics products, plans to continue conducting these tests at major events in big US cities throughout the year.

Verizon led the buildout of cellular and Wi-Fi infrastructure at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, but all four major carriers upgraded their Distributed Antenna Systems in anticipation of the Super Bowl. To keep data usage from overwhelming the network, the NFL blocked streaming of the game inside the stadium.

AT&T reported that its customers used 624GB of data at the stadium, "the highest data usage we’ve ever seen from a one-day sporting event we’ve measured."

After publication of this article, Verizon pointed us to an announcement of its own which showed that its customers used 1.9TB of data in the Super Bowl stadium. That's about three times more data served than AT&T, which could well explain the speed differences between the two networks. Still, an individual user would have had a better experience on the AT&T network when uploading and downloading data.

One thing that wasn't clear from Verizon's announcement is whether the 1.9TB includes Wi-Fi in addition to cellular data. A Verizon spokesperson told us that it's just cellular data, saying, "The 1.9 terabytes is on the Verizon Network only, no Wi-Fi included."