If you ask 100 different mobile device users on the same carrier and in the same place in the US how pleased they are with their download and upload speeds, wireless service availability, consistency, and reliability, you're likely to get 100 vastly different answers any day of the week, and that's probably true even if you widen the experiment to 1,000 or 1,000,000 people on all of the nation's major operators across all areas, cities, and states.
Luckily, you don't have to conduct this type of research yourself, and even though you will always see fans and haters of a certain carrier or another challenge the trustworthiness of such reports put together by companies like Ookla, RootMetrics, or Opensignal, those remain the most objective and scientific way to evaluate the nationwide mobile network experience on the whole.
The latest Ookla analysis puts T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T under the microscope using a number of key performance indicators while also pitting Apple against Samsung for the titles of fastest smartphone manufacturer and fastest device models as of Q3 2023. Without further adieu, here are the most notable findings of this new Speedtest Index:
T-Mobile is still crushing it, but the gap is getting smaller
We know that's not everyone's real-world experience, but at least on paper, T-Mobile has proven to be the best, fastest, and most reliable network operator in the US roughly... a million times in a million different reports over the last few years.
Okay, that number might be a little exaggerated, but this is definitely not: 163.59 Mbps. That's Magenta's mind-blowing new median download speed, and incredibly enough, it's more than double the figures registered by Verizon and AT&T in the same section of the Q3 2023 Ookla US market report.
That means that, even if you combine Big Red and Ma Bell's download speeds right now, which is obviously not how math or mobile networks work, T-Mobile is still ahead of its competition. That's a towering achievement no matter how you look at it, but believe it or not, the difference between the nation's mobile speed leader and its adversaries has actually decreased from the previous quarter.
That's because both Verizon and AT&T have managed to make small but notable gains in this department while T-Mobile's median speed score has dropped slightly from an incredible 164.76 Mbps in Q2.
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The industry-leading "Un-carrier" continues to top all the other charts as well, winning every single category from upload speeds to overall network latency, consistency, video, 5G video, 5G latency, and 5G consistency, but its progresses are simply not as impressive as they used to be until recently.
In the all-important 5G performance field, for instance, T-Mo is up from a median download speed of 220 Mbps last quarter to 221.57 Mbps, which represents a much smaller gain than what Verizon and AT&T were capable of. Then again, the wireless industry's silver and bronze medalists obviously had a lot of room for improvement, jumping from modest scores of 133.50 and 86.01 Mbps respectively to... slightly less modest 153.79 and 101.55 Mbps 5G speed results respectively.
It remains to be seen if Verizon and AT&T can continue to rise in the next few quarters and if T-Mobile has perhaps hit some sort of an invisible ceiling resulting from the 5G technology's inherent limitations or not. For the time being, the 5G speed, availability, and reliability king is still impossible to beat.
One big win for Apple and one for Samsung
Were you surprised to see the Galaxy S23 Ultra in first place and the iPhone 14 Pro Max ranked a modest fourth in median download speeds in Ookla's previous report?
Things are somewhat back to "normal" now that the iPhone 15 family is out, with its two most advanced members winning gold and silver in Q3 thanks to some breathtaking new speed scores. While it's definitely not unusual to see Apple's flagships eclipse their Samsung-made rivals in these types of US hierarchies, the difference between the iPhone 15 Pro Max and 15 Pro on one side and the Galaxy S23 Ultra and Z Fold 4 (not 5?!) on the other is simply staggering.
The best iPhones money can buy right now are essentially the T-Mobile of their category while Samsung's top Galaxy devices look like the market's Verizon... minus the massive recent progress.
But Samsung still comes out on top as far as smartphone manufacturers go, and the reason is most likely the relatively high number of old and comparatively slow iPhones that American consumers continue to use despite obviously not getting the best mobile network experience (theoretically) available today.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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