OpenSignal has recently released its report regarding the network quality of the Big Four carriers in the United States (namely Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint), and according to its latest findings (the report is released every six months), T-Mobile has the best performing network overall.
The report from OpenSignal shows information corresponding to the respective network performances of the four major mobile operators in the country during the period March 31st through June 29th of this year. T-Mobile has managed to beat the other carriers in most categories, including LTE download speed, LTE latency, and LTE availability. The Uncarrier was also ranked first when it came to 3G download speed, overall download speed, and 3G latency.
Based on its latest findings, OpenSignal claims that industry leaders Verizon Wireless and AT&T may have experienced some decrease in their respective 4G connection speeds after joining in on the unlimited data party. The network testing firm singled out the Big Red as the one with the most visible drop in speeds, with Verizon’’s average LTE download test declining by 2 mbps to 14.9 mbps since the last OpenSignal report released half a year ago. Of course, Verizon will likely not be happy with the results, and might even question the accuracy of the tests. Last month after all, it had stated that isolated peaks in connection speeds from a test that is crowd sourced may not paint a very good picture of overall network quality.
As for AT&T, it strongly disagreed with OpenSignal’s latest report. The second biggest wireless carrier in America continues to insist that its data transmissions have remain largely unaffected despite the presumed increased volume of network traffic brought on by introducing its unlimited data offering.
One thing is for sure though -- competition among the Big Four continues to increase in intensity, and it shows in the metrics. OpenSignal pointed out how in the category of 4G availability, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless are really keeping it close. Its data showed that testers were able to find a T-Mobile 4G signal 90.9 percent of the time, while with Verizon Wireless, the percentage was at 89.8 percent.
Interestingly, OpenSignal’s latest report seems to indicate that the transmission speeds of T-Mobile and Sprint, the two carriers who sort of started all this unlimited data wars first, have actually increased during the last six months.
Some people may find it funny that as recently as around a week ago, another testing firm, RootMetrics, released its own findings, and it basically names Verizon Wireless as the top mobile network in the US (in this report, T-Mobile is ranked last among the Big Four). But it gets more intriguing -- a report released by yet another testing firm, Ookla, about a couple of weeks ago, identified T-Mobile as the top performing wireless network. So which is which?
