"Verizon Wireless has the fastest service in many of the cities we looked at and comes in first on acceptable speeds in the top 100 CMAs, but we suspect their use of deprioritization on Unlimited could be bringing down their overall performance."

Meaning, how the carrier throttles data speeds for folks paying for "unlimited data" might be having a negative impact on overall performance.

That T-Mobile is rated so highly for overall speeds at a national level might be an indication that the carrier's speeds are growing outside of metro areas as well. Historically, urban areas have been where T-Mobile trounces the competition, but going outside of them causes a severe drop in data speed and coverage.