Verizon's new XLTE network is as fast as lightning, but that's not why it wins the award for America's fastest mobile network this year. In a nation where we now have four LTE networks battling for dominance, Verizon Wireless takes the crown by being the reliability and coverage king.

For our fifth year of Fastest Mobile Networks testing, we brought in a slew of new partners and asked our readers to run their own tests, supplementing our 80,000 cycles of drive testing over 30 cities and thousands of miles. We found that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, at least, are mostly over the LTE hump in major cities. Sprint still has a way to go before it delivers a truly competitive experience.

T-Mobile provided the year's big surprise, with a powerful showing where it won half of our cities outright. The carrier's performance in the nation's biggest cities was reliably great, although we saw it decline in Indiana, Ohio, and North Carolina where the carrier is spectrum-constrained.

But when we left those major metros, often T-Mobile's LTE network would completely drop off the map. Our out-of-metro results, as we drove past cities like Kalamazoo, Macon, and Yuma, showed very little availability of either Sprint's or T-Mobile's LTE networks, while Verizon's system stayed admirably strong.

And while AT&T won last year's prize, this year Verizon really stepped things up with XLTE. That's Verizon's term for LTE running on AWS 1700MHz spectrum as well as its previously used 700MHz spectrum. The 700MHz gives Verizon terrific rural coverage, and XLTE boosts speeds in major cities like New York and Boston in a huge way.

For more coverage of Fastest Mobile Networks, see our partners at ChipChick, ExtremeTech, GearDiary, Phonedog, Phonescoop, and Slashgear.

Why Drive Tests Matter

We put our cars on the road because drive testing is the only way to separate network performance from device performance. This year, we chose LG G2 phones to test LTE, because they're available on all the major carriers and support all of the fastest networks. We drove thousands of miles in three C-MAX hybrid cars supplied by Ford.

When we compared our drive testing with our crowdsourced results, we saw dramatic differences in performance between phones, especially between older and newer devices that support different strains of LTE.

Testing multiple networks in the same place at the same time also matters. Speed tests are generally slower indoors, so if you test one network inside and one outside, it may not be a fair fight. By driving around with multiple devices, you get the best comparison.

Where We Teste

For the first time, all four wireless carriers had LTE in almost all 30 of our test cities, with the exception being Sprint in Denver. We drove to the same 30 major cities we traveled to in 2012 (and with only one change from 2013), evenly spread across six regions of the country.

Outside our 30 cities, our drivers traveled on a mix of interstate and U.S. highways and stopped in smaller cities along the way. The data we collected contributed to a "suburban/rural" score for each of our six regions.

Sensorly provided us with more than 80,000 tests performed everywhere from Aberdeen, SD to Zanesville, OH. Since almost all of those tests were on Sprint and T-Mobile—we just didn't attract AT&T or Verizon users, apparently—we couldn't use those tests to compare carriers, but we pulled out some really interesting comparisons between the hundreds of devices Sensorly's users tested with. Most importantly, we discovered that if you're a Sprint or Verizon user, you probably need a new phone.

What We Tested

This is fastest mobile networks, so we're focusing on data speed and reliability. We didn't test call quality, dropped calls, or coverage. For the best assessment of voice call quality according to our readers, check out our annual Reader's Choice awards results. To get a picture of wireless coverage near you, go to Sensorly's website and you'll see crowdsourced coverage maps for all the major U.S. mobile carriers, enhanced with the data from our test drives.

Mobile networks are constantly changing, and almost always for the better. And because speeds vary based on tower location, network load, device used, and even the weather, we can't predict performance in a specific location; rather, we're giving a snapshot of a few days' worth of usage in several locations across a metro area. Hit the next page for our regional and national winners.

Regional and National Winners

National: Verizon Wireless LTE

Verizon Wireless has the fastest nationwide LTE network. Keep an eye on that word "nationwide" there. T-Mobile's LTE network also performed very well in many cities, but Verizon's broad national coverage outside our 30 major cities ended up making the difference and granting the nation's largest carrier the crown.





Northeast Region: Verizon Wireless LTE

Verizon dramatically boosted speeds in the northeast this year with the addition of its new XLTE spectrum, making it the outright winner in four of our five northeastern cities and a close second in the fifth. From Boston to Washington D.C., Verizon is back to ruling the roost.





Southeast Region: Verizon Wireless LTE

The southeast was a competitive region this year; Verizon won three awards while AT&T and T-Mobile each won two. Verizon's most impressive performance in the southeast was in reliability, with our Verizon LTE phone consistently and quickly completing Web page downloads on the LTE network from the Carolinas all the way down to Florida.





North Central Region: Verizon Wireless LTE

Verizon's consistent LTE coverage through rural Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri made the difference in this competitive region. The carrier's fast new XLTE spectrum also made a big difference in Chicago, the region's largest city, boosting download speeds to as high as 80Mbps.





South Central Region: Verizon Wireless LTE

As in other regions, both AT&T and T-Mobile showed their strengths through the five cities in this region, but Verizon delivered the best mix of in-city speeds and suburban/rural consistency to nab the overall award.





Northwest Region: Tie (Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile)

T-Mobile won four out of the five cities in this region, but suffered a penalty for its very poor rural LTE coverage, letting Verizon pull ahead and tie according to our rules. Which network you choose depends on how often you head out of town.





Southwest Region: Verizon Wireless LTE

This one was a tight decision between T-Mobile and Verizon. T-Mobile took the desert states, while Verizon did a little better in California. Ultimately, Verizon's much better LTE performance as we drove between cities made the difference for the regional win.





Carrier & Network Profiles

AT&T is in an off year. It has a generally solid network, but we're seeing congestion pull down speeds from last year's award-winning heights. We saw its speeds decline by half in cities like Boston, St. Louis, and Kansas City, even as it got faster in Charlotte, Houston, and Phoenix and showed admirable LTE coverage across smaller cities in the Northeast. AT&T is preparing several moves to speed things up next year, using carrier aggregation to bring together scattered chunks of spectrum and turning on some new 2.3GHz airwaves.

Sprint is still hauling itself out of a deep hole. Last year, it covered 24 of our 30 test cities with LTE; this year, it has 29. Its Spark project more than doubled LTE speeds in Miami, Philadelphia, and Houston, but we didn't see a similar improvement in Baltimore, Chicago, or New York. More importantly, Spark just isn't measuring up to its 50-60Mbps promises. Out of more than 29,000 crowdsourced tests run on a wide range of Sprint devices, only 289 showed speeds of more than 50Mbps down, and 39 of those seemed to be from a single, very lively Samsung Galaxy S5 in New Jersey.

T-Mobile was this year's big surprise. Last year, the company hardly had any LTE at all—this year, it covered all 30 of our test cities. If we never ventured out of those cities, it would've even been the winner. T-Mobile's metro-area network gets high marks for consistently delivering LTE-class speeds; we got downloads over 5Mbps more often on T-Mobile than on any other network. It can deliver peak speeds, too. With more than 20,000 crowdsourced tests, we saw maximum speeds of about 100Mbps and more than 2,800 tests above 50Mbps. T-Mobile's challenge now is to extend that powerful LTE network into the areas between cities where we frequently saw our T-Mobile phone drop to EDGE.

Verizon Wireless is our winner for the year. The nation's biggest carrier roared to a comeback with XLTE, a broad new highway for its LTE technology. You need an XLTE-compatible phone to take advantage of Verizon's best speeds, and we very strongly suggest you get one. Verizon is also still the master of reliability and coverage. The company's LTE network covers even wide open spaces with relatively few people, ensuring a solid data connection wherever you go in the U.S. (That's good, because Verizon's 3G network is much slower than AT&T's or T-Mobile's.) That makes Verizon Wireless, once again, the best choice for anyone who wants high-speed data from sea to shining sea.

In our reviews, we also discuss U.S. Cellular, which does not participate in Fastest Mobile Networks because it doesn't cover enough of our test cities. However, our readers do rate U.S. Cellular in our Readers' Choice Awards.

Many other companies that appear to be wireless carriers just borrow the networks of the Big Four. Consumer Cellular and Cricket are AT&T. MetroPCS is T-Mobile. Boost, Republic, and Virgin are Sprint. Straight Talk uses a mix of AT&T and T-Mobile, while TracFone uses all four networks.

Testing Methodology

To test the nation's mobile networks, we used field-test software from network testing firm Sensorly, loaded onto Android-powered smartphones.

This year, we used LG G2 phones for seven of the networks we tested, all but the old Verizon CDMA network. Since the Verizon LG G2 cannot be set to CDMA-only mode, we had to use LG Vortex phones for that network.

We loaded the phones into three Ford C-Max hybrid cars, equipped with power inverters to run the phones all day long.

Sensorly's 2014 software ran several tests every three minutes: a ping to test network latency, multi-threaded HTTP upload and download tests including separate "time-to-first-byte" measures, and the download of a 1MB Web page with 70 elements.

We tested mostly during business hours, during a period from May 1st to May 23rd, 2014; we visited different cities on different days. In each city, our drivers stopped in 10 to 12 locations for at least 15 minutes (five test cycles) each. We also collected data while moving, both within and between cities.

We ended up with about 90,000 test cycles across our 30 cities, in a 70MB Excel 2010 spreadsheet. We continue to use Excel 2010 because I don't want to have to rewrite my macros for Excel 2013, and it works fine.

This year, we also asked our readers and Sensorly's users to contribute crowdsourced results based on Sensorly's consumer app for Android and iOS devices. Because we got too few AT&T and Verizon results from the crowd, we couldn't fold crowdsourced results into our final numbers, but we offered them to our partners and used them to discover some interesting differences between the top mobile phone models. (For more on this, see Why You Need a New Phone.)

The PCMag Speed Score

Our speed score this year, as in previous years, is a weighted average balancing 70 percent speed and 30 percent network reliability.

This year, we added a new speed measurement. Verizon and AT&T have both said that LTE networks should deliver 5-12Mbps down and 2-5Mbps up, so we're holding them to it. In consultation with Sensorly, we've decided that 3G networks should offer 1.5-5Mbps down and 0.5-2Mbps up. So we've established minimum download and upload thresholds: the percentage of tests exceeding 5Mbps/1.5Mbps down on LTE/3G and 2Mbps/0.5Mbps up on LTE/3G. In our results charts, you'll see the distribution of how many download tests score below the minimum, within the acceptable range, and better than the promised maximum.

The "Web page completion" metric needs some explanation. A Web test is counted as unsuccessful if the 1MB page doesn't download in 30 seconds or if an LTE device drops to 3G. So that number wraps together both network drops and stalled downloads for an overall picture of network reliability.

• Average HTTP download speed (20 percent)

• Percentage of downloads over 5Mbps (LTE) / 1.5Mbps (3G) (10 percent)

• Average HTTP upload speed (10 percent)

• Percentage of uploads over 2Mbps (LTE) / 0.5Mbps (3G) (10 percent)

• Web page download speed (10 percent)

• HTTP download time to first byte (10 percent)

• Successful Web page completion in 30 seconds (30 percent)

The regional and national scores are the averages of the cities and suburban/rural areas in each region, with a 16.6 percent (1/6 of the total score) penalty for each city a carrier has no coverage in.

We're also reporting average and maximum speeds. The average speeds are calculated by each of the 10 stationary tests making up 1/12 of the average, and the total of all mobile tests in a city making up 1/6 of the average. For suburban/rural areas, we just took an average of all tests.

Why You Need a New Phone

More than 80,000 crowdsourced network tests show us that if you want to get online fast, you need a new phone.

For Fastest Mobile Networks this year, we asked Sensorly's crowd and our readers to contribute their own test results. And they did: We got results from 822 metro areas and 323 different devices.

We couldn't include the crowdsourced results in our main data because of a funny disparity: Sprint and T-Mobile users were far more likely to help out than AT&T and Verizon subscribers. More than 70,000 tests came from Sprint and T-Mobile, while only 11,000 tests came from the two much larger carriers.

But we pulled out some fascinating differences between individual phones, measured on the same carrier in the same metro area. Here are the top four things I think you need to know. Most notably, if you're on Sprint or Verizon, you probably want a new phone.

Spark Makes a Huge Difference for Sprint

If you have a Sprint phone and you want any sort of decent network performance, you need access to Spark, Sprint's enhanced LTE network. We compared the Spark-powered LG G2 phone in two Spark cities to the non-Spark iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S3, and Spark connectivity doubles the speeds. That iPhone 5 in Fort Lauderdale, in fact, delivered slower speeds than AT&T's or T-Mobile's 3G networks. Sprint customers, go get a Spark phone right now.

XLTE Really Helps Verizon

If you're a Verizon subscriber, you don't need an XLTE phone, but you want one. We compared the XLTE-powered Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 with the XLTE-less S3. While all three phones delivered decent LTE speeds averaging over 10Mbps down, we saw a 50 percent speed bump on the XLTE devices across all the Verizon cities we tested. If you're online enough, that's worth going out to get a new phone.

iPhones and Android Match Speeds

Apple and Google may sling around competing speed claims, but we didn't see a noticeable difference in network speeds between the latest iPhones and Android devices. Comparing the two platforms on T-Mobile in New York and Los Angeles, we found that the iPhone 5c and 5s performed just about as well as the Samsung Galaxy S4, S5, and HTC One (M8). Pick your operating system based on comfort, security, customizability, and apps, but don't worry too much about modem performance.

T-Mo Says "Oh, No" In Ohio

We were very impressed with T-Mobile's LTE speeds in most of the country's largest cities, but the carrier still has some pinches and gaps. When you drive outside major metro areas, for instance, T-Mobile's LTE network falls away more often than we'd like. The carrier also appears to be pinched in Ohio and Indiana. When we compared our crowdsourced tests in Cincinnati and Dayton with the nation's three largest cities, we saw the difference. T-Mobile says it's working on it.

Atlanta, GA

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

Verizon's new XLTE spectrum really made the difference in Atlanta, giving Big Red the fastest upload and download speeds by a long shot. It's pretty evenly distributed throughout the city, too; we saw stunning upload speeds in the 30+ Mbps range downtown, in Buckhead, Little Five Points, and at Turner Field. Verizon's LTE network also had the best overall availability of the four LTE networks across our 11 test sites.

T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T all have their pros and cons here. T-Mobile was the second-fastest network, but AT&T offered slightly better availability. Sprint, meanwhile, was even more impressively reliable, but quite slow for an LTE network.

Austin, TX

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

T-Mobile's LTE network won every single speed measure in Austin, making it the clear choice. Our phone briefly dropped to 3G along Lime Creek Road and in Manor, but T-Mobile's 3G network is still pretty fast, so we didn't mind. Verizon's LTE network offered somewhat better LTE coverage at somewhat slower speeds, but when it drops down to 3G, it drops a lot farther down than T-Mobile does.

AT&T had a bit of a capacity problem with individual cell sites in Austin. At E 7th and Navasota, for instance, we got solid LTE signal but a chunk of slow speeds that ramped up at the end of our test, showing that AT&T's connection there was saturated for part of our test period. We saw the same thing by one corner of the Dell Children's Medical Center, but speeds increased as soon as we traveled a block down Barbara Jordan Blvd.

Baltimore, MD

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

Do you know about Baltimore's proud wireless history? For years, Baltimore was where carriers would test new technologies because of its complex mix of hills, water, and high-rise and low-rise neighborhoods. That makes Baltimore a tough town for wireless, and we saw that in wobbly networks across the board.

Baltimore was the first place Sprint launched its 4G WiMAX network, which is one reason I'm sad to see Sprint's slow performance here. We only got bonafide Spark speeds at three of our test locations: at Monument and Howard, Druid Lake, and out in the Baltimore County suburbs.

Verizon, on the other hand, delivered blazing XLTE speeds more consistently. It still had its ups and downs—North Avenue and Howard was a slow spot, for instance—but they were balanced out by crazy speeds elsewhere, like a run of 50Mbps downloads at Union Square Park in West Baltimore. Overall, Verizon had the best LTE experience in a difficult city for network design.

Boston, MA

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

This one was tight. T-Mobile has been pouring money into ex-MetroPCS cities in the Northeast, with the result of pretty consistent LTE coverage across Boston at solid speeds over our 5Mbps "good" threshold. But Verizon's coverage is even better, and though its speeds varied more widely, it was faster more often. That makes Verizon our overall (narrow) pick for Boston.

AT&T saw a precipitous drop in Boston speeds between 2013 and 2014, a natural outcome of adding a lot of LTE devices but no new LTE spectrum. This is one city where carrier aggregation will make a positive difference for AT&T subscribers in 2015.

Charlotte, NC

Winner: AT&T LTE

AT&T dominated both of our North Carolina cities. In both Raleigh and Charlotte, AT&T offered the best upload and download speeds with excellent reliability, making it our overall North Carolina choice.

Charlotte was more competitive than Raleigh, with both AT&T and Verizon turning in perfect Web completion scores and Sprint Spark finally showing up to play. AT&T performed especially well in the Myers Park and South Park neighborhoods, with speeds in the 50-60Mbps range.

If you're looking for a low-cost carrier in North Carolina, consider Cricket; now owned by AT&T, it's using the excellent AT&T LTE network and should have the same winning performance.

Chicago, IL

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

Consistently fast speeds and just plain terrific LTE coverage make Verizon Wireless our winner in Chicago this year. T-Mobile also performed very well, delivering LTE speeds over our minimum threshold even more consistently (Verizon had one slow spot by Midway Airport). But Verizon turned in absolutely crazy peak speeds, such as 80Mbps down on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus.

AT&T's Chicago speeds are slower than last year's, but they're still pretty solid. The big blue carrier fell behind scrappy T-Mobile with the reliability of its 3G network, though, as we saw scattered stalled Web page downloads all over the city.

Hey, where's that Sprint Spark? As we saw in other cities, Sprint was dragged down by very inconsistent Spark coverage. Navy Pier? Sparky. Wrigley Field? Sparky. Irving Park by the cemeteries? Sparky. Elsewhere? Not so sparky. That's Sprint's challenge right now.

Dallas, TX

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

Dallas is MetroPCS's old home city, so T-Mobile has more spectrum here than it does almost anywhere else. It has used that spectrum to good effect, delivering speeds that dominate the other major wireless carriers. T-Mobile gets extra points for consistently delivering download speeds over 5Mbps on its LTE network more often than its competitors do.

I was surprised to find that overall, though, Dallas is a much slower city than it was last year. We saw declines in speeds across the board, with the exception of Sprint's LTE network; AT&T showed the most precipitous drop, struggling especially with a capacity issue downtown at Pioneer Plaza. That's made Dallas one of our slower cities across all networks this year, a major shift from 2012 and 2013.

Denver, CO

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

Denver is the only city we tested this year without four official LTE networks. Sprint hasn't launched LTE in Denver yet, although we saw a few towers turned on as we drove around town.

AT&T and Verizon weren't noticeably slower this year than they were last year. The big news is T-Mobile's brand-new LTE network, which launched last July and has just been going gangbusters all around the Denver metro area. It's really fast—as long as you don't travel further out than Longmont or Boulder.

This year, we drove up I-25, through Fort Collins, and then into Wyoming on our way to Salt Lake City. T-Mobile coverage in Denver was excellent, but it was much poorer in the more rural areas. If you tend to drive farther afield, take a closer look at Verizon Wireless.

Detroit, MI

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

Consistency won the day for T-Mobile's LTE network in Detroit. It outpaced Verizon by delivering 93 percent of its downloads over 12Mbps, a stellar result for people looking for true 4G performance from their 4G network. That said, it did drop to 3G in Grosse Point.

Verizon did pretty well here, too—you can see the XLTE effect as Big Red's speeds increased 50 percent from 2013, and Verizon's LTE network never dropped, although it slowed down sometimes. The fastest spot in town? We saw over 70Mbps on Verizon on Warren Ave. off Schaefer Rd.

Sprint's 4G network in Detroit shows how badly the company needs its Spark upgrade. It wasn't actually noticeably slower than last year; it had lousy performance both years.

Houston, TX

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

XLTE ruled the day in Houston, with Verizon's new spectrum allowing for average speeds much faster than any competing network's. That makes Verizon Wireless the winner this year in Houston by a landslide.

AT&T also did well, topping last year's speeds—just not to the extent that Verizon Wireless did. In fact, with solid results from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, Houston has a good selection of fast wireless networks to choose from.

Houston is a Sprint Spark city, and the good news is that we did see some Spark in Memorial, at the Houston Arboretum, and even out in Prairie View. But we saw slower LTE speeds elsewhere, and our Sprint LTE phone bounced between 3G and LTE several times in Houston.

Indianapolis, IN

Winner: AT&T LTE

AT&T's speeds in Indy improved from 2013, and consistently fast speeds with solid reliability make it our winner in Indiana. Verizon Wireless came a close second with higher peak speeds and even better reliability, but its average speed was docked a bit for a slow spot northwest of downtown. Both networks are good choices.

T-Mobile is having a tough time in Indianapolis because the carrier is spectrum-constrained in Indiana and Ohio, so it can't deliver the broad lanes we see in its ex-MetroPCS cities. Our Sprint LTE phone, meanwhile, kept bouncing between LTE and 3G all over town, leading to those lower Web completion results.

Jacksonville, FL

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

Another near-tie. T-Mobile brought slightly higher speeds, and Verizon LTE delivered considerably better reliability; our 70/30 balance between speed and reliability threw the prize to T-Mobile, which also has a faster 3G backup network than Verizon does.

Jacksonville was a fast city all around, with Sprint turning in one of its better Spark performances (although it still struggled with coverage) and AT&T LTE also offering a solid balance of speed and reliability. While we didn't see the crazy peak speeds in Jacksonville that we saw elsewhere, the carriers had consistently fast connections across the metro area.

Kansas City, MO-KS

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

People in Sprint's hometown are used to fast connections: Kansas City was the first place to get Google Fiber, making it one of the few places in the country with true competition for high-speed home Internet service.

Sprint's LTE speeds have held their own in Kansas City, but they've been massively outpaced by Verizon's new XLTE network. Average download speeds on Verizon vaulted from 15 to 24 Mbps thanks to Verizon's new AWS spectrum, with solid reliability across the metro area.

AT&T saw a major speed drop in Kansas City this year, so I'm pretty sure that the company will focus on KC for carrier aggregation in 2015. Local residents clearly demand no less.

Las Vegas, NV

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

Think of T-Mobile as the Selfie Network. T-Mobile and Verizon both have a lot of spectrum in Las Vegas, and they've both been upgrading to broad 20MHz channels. T-Mobile won in large part because of much faster upload speeds—that's the time it takes for your high-res selfie to make it to Instagram.

Download-wise, T-Mobile's speed advantage came and went across our 10 test sites. T-Mobile did better along the Strip, while Verizon showed better performance in neighborhoods west of I-15. Within big hotel-casinos, of course, anything goes: Reception there is entirely dependent on whether that casino has made a deal with your carrier of choice for an in-building coverage system. I've seen mixed results in dozens of trips to Las Vegas over the past decade.

Las Vegas is not a Spark market for Sprint yet, so we saw slow Sprint LTE speeds there. And while AT&T had some strong peak speeds, low download speeds in our Strip and Downtown tests held back its overall results.

Los Angeles, CA

Winner: Tie (T-Mobile and Verizon)

Are you into uploads or downloads? T-Mobile and Verizon tied on our weighted score in Los Angeles, but you still have to decide. Verizon delivered faster peak and average download speeds; T-Mobile LTE had somewhat faster uploads.

The networks broke dramatically differently across neighborhoods. We saw stronger T-Mobile and AT&T results than Verizon downtown. Just a few miles away, Verizon dominated around USC, and T-Mobile performed very well in Westwood and Santa Monica. T-Mobile delivered admirable speeds up in Pasadena and Pomona, while Verizon had better LTE reliability in parts of Orange County.

Notably, nobody had perfect network reliability in Los Angeles—in most other cities, at least one network had a Web completion score above 90 percent. With such imperfect networks, it's important to try out new phones during their return period before you commit to a carrier choice.

Memphis, TN

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

T-Mobile used to have a really hard time in Memphis. Not any more; although its LTE network isn't quite as reliable as AT&T's or Verizon's yet, it's safely faster. That's a big shift from last year, when T-Mobile was really spectrum-pinched in Memphis; scooping up some old U.S. Cellular spectrum in a deal last year made the difference for Magenta.

That said, everybody's a bit of a winner here, even Sprint. Verizon saw its average speeds skyrocket from 11 to 18Mbps over the past year thanks to XLTE. Sprint's average speeds vaulted up, too. AT&T's speeds declined, but not by as much as we've seen in other cities. (That said, AT&T also provided our single fastest set of results, with speeds at the Eastgate Shopping Center hitting 60Mbps.)

T-Mobile's greatest strength in Memphis was Web download speeds, so surfing on that network should be a pleasure.

Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

This year we had an extra day in South Florida, so we spent it tooling around Broward County and a day in Dade. I know. It's a tough job. You should see driver Angela Moscaritolo's tan.

Verizon dominated in South Florida, and if you can afford it, it should be your choice. Fastest downloads, fastest uploads, best reliability. It'll serve you well.

But I have to call out Sprint Spark here, because in South Florida we finally started to see the speeds we're expecting from Sprint's new higher-speed system. Sprint outpaced AT&T and pulled wicked 50Mbps speeds at a site near S Miami Ave and SE 15th Rd. If we see those kinds of speeds from Sprint nationwide next year, it'll be a whole new ballgame.

T-Mobile still took second place thanks to better reliability and better upload performance than Sprint, though.

New Orleans, LA

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

It's Verizon XLTE for the win again in New Orleans. Verizon's LTE network saw a 70 percent speed jump from last year to this year, and it scored the best of any network on uploads, downloads, and reliability.

Sprint's and T-Mobile's performance both improved between last year and this, but AT&T's declined because of extreme network variability. AT&T would show flashes of great speeds while we were driving through town—43-56Mbps in the Treme, for instance—but speeds would settle down when we stopped for our stationary testing, which is the opposite of what's supposed to happen. That left previously dominant AT&T in a near-tie with T-Mobile for second place.

New York, NY

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

New York has slain many a phone company. First AT&T's 3G system crumpled under the weight of all those iPhones; then Verizon's network nearly collapsed in 2012 when it got the LTE iPhone 5. There's good news this year, though: AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all showed solid consistency across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, showing that the days of dropped connections are ending in the nation's biggest city.

New York is Verizon's hometown, and it appears to have taken its troubles there seriously: Average download speeds tripled between last year and this year. If you don't have an XLTE-capable phone, go get one right now.

This is a prestige market for T-Mobile and Verizon, both of whom have a lot of spectrum to play with, so both delivered impressive speeds. Verizon's LTE network only dropped once during our tests. Hang out at Spring and Varick downtown if you want to try to duplicate our 80Mbps Verizon maximum result.

The low Sprint Web completion results showed how our phone was waggling between 3G and LTE for our entire test run, with some of those LTE test results at 3G speeds. We only saw solid Spark speeds in our Greenwich Village test. Turning to our crowdsourced results, we also found some Spark speeds along Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, but not down by Yankee Stadium where our drive testers went.

Philadelphia, PA

Winner: Verizon Wireless LTE

Verizon wins Philadelphia largely on the back of the fastest average and peak download speeds. The company's XLTE upgrade boosted average download speeds from 10.3 to 19.6Mbps, outpacing the other carriers' efforts.

We were impressed by the reliability results we saw from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, though, all of which covered Philadelphia without dropping LTE signal. Our fastest result was a 65Mbps down on Verizon in South Philly by the Eagles stadium—stadiums tend to have pretty powerful systems set up, and we got lucky stopping there on a non-game day.

While AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all delivered speeds that could probably beat your home Comcast connection, that's still no reason for the Philadelphia giant to be able to merge with Time Warner—remember that as soon as you hook up an actual PC, all of the wireless carriers slap down restrictive data caps.

Phoenix, AZ

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

I remember when we drove past a lone T-Mobile LTE tower in Phoenix last year and said, "This thing looks fast." Well, they put up the rest of the towers, and it's indeed fast. T-Mobile won Phoenix over Verizon by providing more consistently speedy downloads and considerably faster uploads; the carrier's 4G network is also paired with a 3G network that's better at picking up the slack than Verizon's 3G system.

AT&T delivered fast speeds, but hit a couple of saturated choke points in town. If you regularly drive between Phoenix and Tucson, meanwhile, look more closely at Verizon; it did the best job maintaining consistent LTE coverage down to Casa Grande and beyond.

Portland, OR

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all did well in Portland, but consistently high speeds ended up winning the day for T-Mobile. The key is to look at the distribution graph below—while AT&T and Verizon each had some tests under our 5Mbps download threshold, T-Mobile had hardly any, whether on its HSPA+ or LTE networks. That means a T-Mobile connection in Portland will deliver a 4G-feeling experience more often.

Sprint's performance in Portland was terribly uneven. We saw some top-notch Spark speeds at the airport and by the University of Portland, but our device bounced between LTE and 3G more often than LTE phones on the other carriers.

Remember that T-Mobile's LTE network is still primarily urban. We saw much less T-Mobile LTE than AT&T or Verizon between Portland and Eugene, and none south of Eugene, where our T-Mobile phone fell back to 2G.

Our Sprint 3G phone malfunctioned in Portland and we didn't get valid results, but that didn't affect our winners as we rate 3G and LTE networks separately.

Raleigh, NC

Winner: AT&T LTE

AT&T dominated both of our North Carolina cities. In both Raleigh and Charlotte, AT&T offered the best upload and download speeds with excellent reliability, making it our overall North Carolina choice.

All three of the other networks acted as if they were spectrum-constrained in Raleigh. Sprint's Spark-less performance was pretty weak, Verizon didn't look XLTE-equipped, and T-Mobile had disappointing top speeds.

If you're looking for a low-cost carrier in North Carolina, consider Cricket; now owned by AT&T, it's using the excellent AT&T LTE network and should have the same winning performance.

Salt Lake City, UT

Winner: T-Mobile LTE

T-Mobile's performance in Salt Lake City shows why it's important to look at speed distribution across a large number of tests. AT&T and Verizon had better peak download speeds, and Sprint matched T-Mobile's download peak. But look at those distribution charts down there: Almost half of AT&T's LTE download results were below the 5Mbps threshold we established for a good LTE experience. With T-Mobile, 97 percent of its tests were over 5Mbps.

As usual, Verizon also did well here. Sprint offers Spark service in Salt Lake City and Provo. We saw it at the airport and Brickyard Plaza, but not elsewhere; our crowdsourced testers also showed similarly poor results finding Spark, although it showed up pretty reliably downtown on one tester's LG G2 phone.

San Diego, CA

Verizon LTE

Superior reliability gave Verizon the crown in San Diego; while all three of the other LTE networks dropped to 3G at some point during our roaming around San Diego County, Verizon Wireless never did. Combine that with dramatically higher speeds this year compared with last year, and we found our winner.

Across southern California, Verizon looks like the Cadillac choice right now and T-Mobile the affordable alternative. AT&T needs to step up reliability here, as the network had some wobbles in Point Loma and La Jolla at locations that proved no problem for Verizon's LTE network.

San Francisco/San Jose, CA

T-Mobile LTE

T-Mobile's speed killed the competition in the Bay Area. We did five tests in San Francisco and then drove down the peninsula to San Jose, doing three tests in Silicon Valley and three in San Jose. As we've seen elsewhere, while AT&T and Verizon showed higher peak speeds than T-Mobile, T-Mobile consistently delivered download speeds over 5Mbps and upload speeds over 2Mbps more often than the competition, making it a more reliably LTE-class experience.

You'd think T-Mobile coverage would vary across the metro area, but we found surprisingly consistent high speeds all the way down the peninsula. We did see some brief drops to 3G at Stanford and on the 280, but T-Mobile's HSPA+ network is also really fast—in fact, those speeds tended to blend right into the LTE picture. Our Sprint LTE phone spent most of its time in the Bay Area on 3G, rising to LTE for a few hour-long blocks but not offering a consistent LTE experience.

Seattle, WA

Verizon LTE

XLTE rules Seattle. Verizon's LTE network turned in amazing results in our 10 tests around the city, with excellent network availability and just stunning speeds. T-Mobile also did well, but it couldn't match the consistently dazzling speeds we saw from Verizon.

For example: In most cities, when we saw 80Mbps speeds, it was usually on a single fluke test. But settling in on the UW campus, we saw a string of 80Mbps results—pow, pow, pow. Up in Northgate, we saw a string of 70s. Lots of wow.

That'll burn up your data plan in minutes, of course. T-Mobile and Sprint offer unlimited data; of the two, T-Mobile is the better bet here. Seattle is T-Mobile's hometown, and the carrier turned in solid speeds across all of our drive tests. Of course, the fastest speeds (66Mbps down) appeared on T-Mobile's corporate campus in Bellevue.

Seattle isn't yet a Sprint Spark city, so speeds were pretty low, although we did find an active Spark tower in Lakeland North.

St. Louis, MO

T-Mobile LTE

T-Mobile eked out a win over Verizon Wireless in St. Louis thanks to consistently faster across-the-board speeds, even though Verizon and AT&T delivered better LTE reliability.

T-Mobile is the one bright spot in a tough LTE picture for St. Louis this year. AT&T's speeds declined by half in our tests, and while Verizon stayed steady, it didn't show the XLTE-powered gains we saw in other metro areas. Sprint launched LTE in St. Louis this year, but without Spark, we're seeing slow speeds. And last year, St. Louis lost a competitive option when Sprint shut down U.S. Cellular's old network.

Hopefully, next year will see better results for St. Louis.

Tucson, AZ

T-Mobile LTE

Tucson was a surprisingly slow city all around, with lower average and peak speeds than we saw in much of the rest of the country this year. T-Mobile's LTE network turned in the best performance of a bunch of so-so results, but let's note that T-Mobile's winning score here would have been a loser as close by as Phoenix.

That said, we like T-Mobile all around in Tucson because not only did it deliver the highest speeds, it did so with the least coverage drops. T-Mobile has the fastest 3G backup network of the four national carriers, as well, so even when you fall down to 3G, it doesn't hurt you too badly.

That said, if you regularly drive between Phoenix and Tucson, look more closely at Verizon; it did the best job maintaining consistent LTE coverage up to Casa Grande and beyond.

Washington, D.C.

T-Mobile LTE

T-Mobile's new LTE network won our Washington, D.C. tests by offering significantly higher upload speeds than its next competitor, Verizon Wireless LTE. And while Verizon delivered higher peak speeds, T-Mobile's speeds were more consistently above our 5Mbps download threshold for a true LTE experience.

Both Sprint and Verizon saw dramatic improvements in Washington over the past year. Even without Spark, Sprint speeds jumped from an average of around 4 to nearly 8Mbps, and the addition of XLTE spectrum helped Verizon speeds nearly double. T-Mobile's overall performance won the day, though.

Suburban/Rural Northeast

AT&T LTE Our "suburban/rural" rating bundles together all the data we collected when driving between cities. In the Northeast, that meant driving from Boston to Worcester, MA; Hartford, CT; and Bridgeport, CT; and then down the I-95 corridor from New York City to Washington, DC.

LTE networks had a tendency to drop out between cities, so we disqualified any network with under 30 percent availability on the long drive. In the Northeast, that was only Sprint, which had particularly weak coverage in Connecticut and Maryland.

AT&T and Verizon both had admirable LTE coverage along our route. Verizon's coverage was actually the best, but AT&T's LTE speeds were slightly faster; I'm also comfortable giving AT&T the win here because its 3G fallback network is considerably faster than Verizon's.

While T-Mobile's speeds were admirable, its mainly metro build-out strategy meant big LTE gaps in western Massachusetts, northern Connecticut, and some New York suburbs.

Suburban/Rural North Central

Verizon Wireless LTE Our "suburban/rural" rating bundles together all the data we collected when driving between cities. For our North Central region, that meant the I-94 corridor across Michigan, I-65 between Chicago and Indianapolis, I-70 across Illinois and Missouri, and a diagonal from Kansas City down to Springfield, MO.

Neither AT&T, Sprint, nor T-Mobile offered more than 30 percent Web completion on their LTE networks, so they were disqualified. Verizon, on the other hand, had almost 90 percent LTE reliability, showing that the company's promises of a nationwide LTE network are pretty solid across this region.

Verizon's LTE blows away any of its 3G competitors on speed, so let's just take a closer look at some of the other networks. T-Mobile's performance was just awful; it dropped to 2G across much of Missouri. Sprint had much better reliability, but its 3G network is painfully slow. The best second choice? AT&T, which maintained a pretty slow HSPA link across our drive, but at least it wasn't 2G.

Suburban/Rural Southeast

Verizon Wireless LTE

Our "suburban/rural" rating bundles together all the data we collected when driving between cities. For our Southeast region, that meant I-95 through Virginia and part of North Carolina, as well as I-75 and I-16 from Atlanta through Macon to Savannah, and then back on I-95 through Florida.

As we saw in other rural regions, nobody else can compete with the broad reach of Verizon Wireless's LTE network right now. Take AT&T. Yes, it had LTE in cities like Savannah, Daytona Beach, and Port St. Lucie, but our AT&T 4G phone regularly dropped to 3G in between them. And T-Mobile? Forget about it. 2G speeds left us stranded in 2002 heading south from Savannah.

If you want LTE along these corridors, Verizon's your choice.

Suburban/Rural South Central

Verizon Wireless LTE

Our "suburban/rural" rating bundles together all the data we collected when driving between cities. For our South Central region, that meant US-60 across Arkansas, I-55 through Mississippi with a stop in Jackson, a detour on US-90 through the bayous of Louisiana, I-10 to Houston, US-295 to Austin, and I-35 to Dallas.

We saw more LTE competition on this route—only T-Mobile was disqualified for lack of availability—but Verizon still dominated the competition on speed. It's the clear choice in this area.

AT&T pulled out a good showing as well, so consider Cricket if you're looking for a low-cost service. And while Sprint fell behind the big two, I was pleasantly surprised when we ran into Sprint LTE service in smaller burgs like Jonesboro, AR; Jackson, MS; Morgan City, LA; and Brenham, TX.

Suburban/Rural Northwest

Verizon Wireless LTE

The bold mountains of Wyoming and the thick forests of northern California can be hell for wireless network builders. That doesn't seem to have fazed Verizon, which delivered excellent LTE speeds with decent coverage over our northwest rural area.

Our "suburban/rural" rating bundles together all the data we collected when driving between cities. For our Northwest region, we took I-25 from Denver to Cheyenne, had lunch in Cheyenne, drove across Wyoming to stay in Rock Springs, then down into Utah from there, down I-15 through Utah, and later, up the 101 from San Francisco to Crescent City then down Redwood Highway to I-5 all the way to Seattle. It was a lot of driving.

Nobody held up the whole way. Who's going to build an LTE network in a national forest? Nobody. If you do a lot of driving out there, we suggest you get a satellite phone or satellite-based safety device like a SPOT communicator. Do not rely on your mobile phone through these very rural areas.

Verizon did a solid job building out LTE into small cities we passed, though. Vernal and St. George, UT; Ukiah, CA; and much of Wyoming were all covered in Verizon LTE. The most consistent network overall was AT&T's 3G network, but even that dropped out on the stretch of US-199 through the Rogue River National Forest.

Suburban/Rural Southwest

Verizon Wireless LTE

Our "suburban/rural" rating bundles together all the data we collected when driving between cities. For our Southwest region, we drove US-93 from Las Vegas down to Phoenix, I-10 from Phoenix to Tucson, I-8 to San Diego, and I-5 to Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

As we saw elsewhere, Verizon's LTE network and AT&T's 3G network were the two most reliable networks on this drive by far, and Verizon's LTE network beats AT&T HSPA for speed hands down. Our fastest results came in Bakersfield, which is, of course, a significantly sized city.

In this area, Sprint and T-Mobile LTE were both disqualified for being available less than 30 percent of the time.

Further Reading