New LTE study shows T-Mobile is best overall carrier for data in US

LTE has quickly become the standard by which we measure our carriers. If we’re not on an LTE signal, we just aren’t happy. A new report from Open Signal (who measure their findings via metadata collected from their awesome mobile app) shows just how much we rely on LTE across the globe. Perhaps more importantly, their findings also give us a clue on which carrier is the best when it comes to LTE. What we find is that T-Mobile is absolutely schooling their competition.



When it comes to LTE availability, South Korea has the best option of joining a strong cellular connection. The United States is sixth, where Open Signal finds we have LTE about 77% of the time. Of carriers stateside, Verizon has the best LTE availability, with their customers having access to an LTE signal about 86% of the time. AT&T customers have LTE roughly 78% of the time, while T-Mobile customers have LTE about 76% of the time. Sprint is a distant last — their customers have an LTE signal under 60% of the time.

When it comes to download speed, the US leaves a lot to be desired. Our 7Mbps download pales in comparison to Spain’s leading 18Mbps download speed. If you’re wondering why we’ve got such slow data speeds stateside, don’t blame T-Mobile — theirs is the fastest network by far.

Open Signal found the average download speed for T-Mobile subscribers was 9.98Mbps. The closest to them was Verizon, where users average 6.54Mbps download speeds. AT&T checked in at 6.5Mbps, and Sprint is just embarrassing themselves with 4.04Mbps average download speeds.

On Open Signal’s chart of carrier performance, it can be argued that T-Mobile is the best we’ve got stateside. On the idealistic slope toward good coverage and fast speed, T-Mobile trends higher than their competition. They may not have the widest coverage, but they’re close to AT&T, and really only trailing Verizon in that regard. T-Mobile’s lightning quick network just blows the competition away — even Verizon. The uncarrier just has unreal data speeds on a very reliable network, plain and simple.

Update: Corrected to correct LTE availability percentages worldwide.

