AT&T, Verizon Wireless Speeds Have Slowed Due to Unlimited Data Verizon and AT&T's wireless networks have slowed notably since the two companies were forced by T-Mobile to bring back their unlimited data plans. That's according to a new report by Open Signal, which notes that speeds on the T-Mobile and Sprint networks, in contrast, have improved since the research firm's last report. Open Signal's data found that whereas Verizon and T-Mobile were tied for downstream speeds back in February, T-Mobile (17.5 Mbps) now leads Verizon in terms of average download speeds.

AT&T similarly saw a slowdown in the study, from an average downstream speed of 13.9 Mbps in February, to 12.9 Mbps now. "While T-Mobile and Sprint offer unlimited data options as well, neither took a hit in our speed measurements," notes the report. "As their unlimited plans have been available to consumers for years, their networks have been absorbing the high data volumes of such plans for some time. In fact, we measured increases in average 4G speeds for both operators." "Sprint's average LTE download test improved from 9 Mbps to 9.8 Mbps between our reports, though that increase wasn't enough to lift it out of last place in our 4G speed rankings," it continues. "Our average 4G speed test for T-Mobile was 17.5 Mbps, up from 16.7 Mbps." The impact on Verizon's network was likely why users of Netflix and YouTube recently found that Verizon had been throttling their connection speeds unless users used a VPN. Verizon was subsequently for violating net neutrality for failing to clearly disclose what they were doing, since a core tenet of net neutrality is making network management abundantly clear to the end consumer. Open Signal said it collected this data from 172,919 US smartphones during the month of June with its signal mapping app. Open Signal said it collected this data from 172,919 US smartphones during the month of June with its signal mapping app.







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Most recommended from 38 comments

fpb

join:2011-10-30

Millersville, MD 5 recommendations fpb Member Customers So, that means that T-Mobile has a lot less customers than AT&T / Verizon. I'm sure AT&T has a lot more of spectrum to deploy than T-Mobile, so whats the issue here? Ostracus

join:2011-09-05

Henderson, KY 4 recommendations Ostracus Member "Unlimited" quote: AT&T, Verizon Wireless Speeds Have Slowed Due to Unlimited Data Good thing something like that doesn't happen with cable, right? Good thing something like that doesn't happen with cable, right? kucharsk

join:2001-03-30

Louisville, CO 3 recommendations kucharsk Member Can we compare numbers of subscribers? To put this as bluntly as possible, if you, your spouse and your child are using your Internet connection you're going to see different speeds than if your child has thirty friends over all streaming their own Netflix program in 4K.



More subscribers means a higher load and that means slower speeds for all.

battleop

join:2005-09-28

00000 2 recommendations battleop Member How is this possible? How is this possible? Everyone has said that AT&T and Verizon has plenty of capacity and they are just being greedy by trying to limit per user traffic. dlewis23

join:2005-04-18

Boca Raton, FL 2 recommendations dlewis23 Member The Drop in Speed has Stopped With more update to date data you can see that the drop in speed has stalled or stopped. Will know more next month to see if Verizon and AT&T start to rise in nation avg. speed. With the numbers from my app for July Verizon and AT&T were flat with no drop in speed. Sprint saw a slight increase while T-Mobile had a slight drop.