Mobile network performance

The fastest operator shows the fastest speeds based on Speed Score™. Consistency refers to the provider with the best Acceptable Speed Ratio (ASR). LTE Time Spent highlights the provider with the highest Time Spent on 4G.

Data from Speedtest Intelligence reveals AT&T was the fastest mobile operator in the U.S. in Q1-Q2 2019 with a Speed Score of 32.91 on modern devices in competitive geographies. This is an increase of 45.1% over Q1-Q2 2018. T-Mobile was the second fastest (up 9.4% YoY), and Verizon Wireless the third fastest (up 9.5% YoY). Though Sprint was the slowest operator, they showed the second largest year-over-year improvement (36.8%).

Major network developments over the past year

Operators continue to expand and improve their networks across the country. This section outlines those larger improvements. A specific look at developments related to 5G appears below.

Delivering LTE service over seven licensed frequency bands and increasing the amount of seeded devices capable of four and five carrier aggregation has been paying off for AT&T. Over the past year, AT&T has managed to leapfrog the competition to produce the fastest download speeds across the country.

AT&T’s addition of FirstNet spectrum meant a required maintenance visit to cell sites and the addition of brand new hardware at those locations. AT&T wisely used this opportunity to also upgrade the existing radio access infrastructure, including replacing the aging Alcatel-Lucent equipment with Nokia in some areas and adding the 2.3 GHz WCS spectrum for additional capacity. This strategy, combined with a slew of Category 15-20 LTE smartphones, meant a tremendous boost in coverage, speeds and overall capacity.

T-Mobile has expanded its LTE footprint at a furious pace thanks to the addition of 600 MHz spectrum and the agility of its network team. This greenfield frequency band will largely be the building block for T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network. However, some of this spectrum is sitting idle and waiting to be utilized. The existing 600 MHz capable radios that T-Mobile has been installing over the past year, like the Ericsson 4449, are 5G-ready and that unused portion of 600 MHz spectrum can be activated for 5G with an over-the-air software push. Once activated, the entire 600 MHz LTE coverage area will effectively become a 5G coverage area.

In several top markets, T-Mobile’s millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum holdings allow them to add incremental 5G capacity. This capacity should also spur the necessary backhaul upgrades to support faster speeds and overall increases in traffic. A merger with Sprint would offer a unique blend of low, mid and high band spectrum, with the potential to deliver an impressive nationwide 5G network.

Verizon Wireless

Network densification, increasing the amount of spatial streams, and adding License Assisted Access (LAA) to urban cores has maintained Verizon Wireless’ excellent performance coast-to-coast. Virtually all mid-band spectrum assets have been repurposed for LTE, and in many markets, a portion of the 850 MHz spectrum is used to fortify the coverage layer.

Verizon Wireless is almost certainly making all the necessary investments and upgrades in preparation for the upcoming 5G network expansion, including radio access that requires a robust fiber-fed backhaul network.

Sprint

A year ago we wrote about the change in Sprint’s 2.5 GHz TDD frame configuration, which improved the downlink throughput, and other techniques that could boost spectral efficiency of the network. The addition of Higher Order Modulation on both downlink and uplink has improved speeds, as has dedicating more PCS spectrum to LTE. However, in order to maximize the 2.5 GHz spectrum assets, the cellular grid needs to be densified which will require a significant investment.

Upon merging, T-Mobile could solve this issue by combining its site portfolio with Sprint’s “keep” sites. This may reduce the lengthy zoning and permitting process, allowing the combined company to utilize this valuable spectrum in the shortest time possible.

Sprint’s LTE upgrades have included the installation of thousands of massive MIMO radios to existing cell sites. These radios support dual mode 4G/5G operation and can significantly increase cell site capacity. The next obvious upgrades for Sprint will be securing multi-gig fiber backhaul to support their upcoming 5G rollout and activating 4-layer MIMO, which will improve both speeds and capacity.

While many consumers are looking to get the fastest speeds possible, others still struggle to get the kind of consistent speeds that allow them to reliably use their mobile devices for common use cases like streaming HD video. This is why we also consider each operator’s Acceptable Speed Ratio (ASR) in our annual report. ASR measures what percent of each provider’s download data samples are HD-capable (equaling or exceeding 5 Mbps) on mobile.

Verizon Wireless provided the most consistent experience in competitive geographies in the U.S. during Q1-Q2 2019 with an ASR of 87.3%, a 1.0% improvement over Q1-Q2 2018. T-Mobile was the second most consistent with an ASR of 86.9% (down 0.2% YoY), AT&T the third (up 10.3% YoY) and Sprint the least (up 7.7% YoY).

When we break operators’ speeds down into 5 Mbps segments, we see that all operators show similar slopes of declining percentages of samples that fall into each progressively faster bucket up to 100 Mbps. On closer examination of the data within the slowest segment, AT&T stands out due to what appears to be the impact of network management applied to their legacy Unlimited Choice plans.

We grouped samples above 100 Mbps to see which operator is providing the most service at higher speeds. AT&T showed the largest percentage of samples above 100 Mbps, Sprint was second, T-Mobile was third and Verizon Wireless was fourth. This speed segment will see the most improvement in future years as operators expand 5G service.

Speedtest coverage data shows what percentage of time an average user spends on a given cellular technology, both on and off of their subscriber (SIM) network. We call this metric Time Spent.

Customers of all top providers in the U.S. were able to connect to 4G a majority of the time in Q1-Q2 2019. Verizon Wireless had the highest percentage of time spent on 4G and the lowest percentage with no coverage. T-Mobile had the second highest percentage of time spent on 4G and the highest with no coverage. Sprint had the third highest time spent on 4G and AT&T fourth. Both AT&T and T-Mobile fall back to HSPA or HSPA+ (which we categorize as 3G or 3.5G, respectively, in our data) when LTE is not available.

Sprint customers spent the most time roaming off network (both on 4G and 3G), though that percentage was still small.