It’s that time of year again when independent mobile analytics firm RootMetrics® releases its US Mobile Network Performance report, providing an in-depth look at network performance across the top four national carriers.

We’re excited to see that the Sprint LTE Plus network shows year-over-year improvement, with Metro RootScore® Awards up 25 percent and State RootScore Awards (for Speed, Call or Text) up 180 percent. In this latest report we’re pleased to now rank #1 in a tie nationally for Text performance for the first time, rank #2 nationally in Call performance, and continue to stay competitive in Overall performance.

#1 Nationally in Text

In the first half of 2017 Sprint customers had a great experience sending and receiving 177 billion text messages. That’s because we made big gains in Text performance, moving up from a third-place rank one year ago to increase our Metro Area RootScore Awards 200% yr-over-yr and tie for #1 nationally for the first time.

#2 Nationally In Call Performance

For a fifth consecutive time, Sprint ranks #2 nationally (outright or tied) in Call network performance. While Call performance might not get a lot of attention in today’s Unlimited, data-driven world, quality voice service still remains one of the most important contributors to wireless customers’ satisfaction. It’s a fact that most speed differences are not noticeable to customers, but a dropped or blocked call certainly is.

#3 Nationally in Overall Performance

Sprint again ranks third outright in Overall network performance in the U.S. for the 6th consecutive time, proving there can be more to measuring network performance than just speed. Compared to the previous report we’re happy to see that Sprint improved its score in all six award categories (Overall, Reliability, Speed, Data, Call and Text).

Bringing Faster Data Speeds Than Ever to More Locations

As for Speed and Data performance, RootMetrics notes in this latest report* that Sprint “showed strong improvements to the number of markets in which it delivered median download speeds of 20 Mbps or faster.” And our fastest median download speed of 33.9 Mbps was recorded by RootMetrics in Atlanta, GA.

Other third-party benchmarks also validate our improvement in data speeds. According to Ookla Speedtest data from January to June 2017, Sprint’s average download speeds increased 20 percent.

Data speeds and performance consistently improve as we densify our network with new 2.5 GHz solutions. Our newest innovation is Sprint Magic Box, and we’re excited about the difference it’s making for thousands of customers such as North Boone School District in rural Illinois where Sprint Magic Box increased data speeds more than 500 percent.

This year our top priority is to keep giving customers a great Unlimited data experience by adding more coverage and capacity where it’s needed. Capable devices that can utilize High Performance User Equipment (HPUE), and other solutions such as Sprint Magic Box, are bringing faster data speeds to more locations, particularly indoors. And we’ve extended our network toolbox with other low-cost solutions – indoor and outdoor small cells, strand mounts, repeaters and more.

As we move further into the second half of the year we’re focused on preparing for four-channel carrier aggregation, higher order and Massive MIMO, 256 QAM, and Gigabit Class LTE. Our recent Massive MIMO trial with Samsung showcased the incredible capacity of our 2.5 GHz spectrum. Powerful 64T64R (64 transmit, 64 receive) radios will be a tremendous competitive advantage for Sprint with commercial deployment beginning next year.

You’ll see us keep working hard to improve our network, leveraging our deep spectrum resources to meet the growing demand for Unlimited data. It’s an exciting time at Sprint as more and more customers realize that our network delivers the service they need at a price they can afford. #WorksForMe

– John

Rankings based on RootMetrics US National, 50 State, & 125 Metro RootScore Reports (1H 2016 and 1H 2017) for mobile performance as tested on best available plans and devices on 4 mobile networks across all available network types. Your experience may vary. The RootMetrics awards are not an endorsement of Sprint. Visit www.rootmetrics.com.

*RootMetrics Report: Mobile performance in the US Part 3: performance in metro areas 1H 2017, published July 25, 2017.