Does everybody hate T-Mobile now? That seems like a pretty fair assessment to make based on the countless recent Reddit threads and other social media posts viciously attacking the "Un-carrier" for its hugely unpopular moves borrowed straight from the old playbook of the nation's "traditional" carriers.
Of course, "everybody" is a big word, and if there's something a lot of somebodies can't help but continue to love about Magenta, that's definitely its industry-leading 5G network. We're talking about a 5G network that added yet another speed crown last week to a list of gold medals that would probably make Michael Phelps jealous, and believe it or not, Opensignal is today handing T-Mo an extra nine, count'em, nine mobile experience awards for July 2024.
We all know there's no such thing as a flawless wireless network, but T-Mo is sure inching closer and closer to delivering the perfect mobile experience across the nation, at least according to the periodic research conducted by Opensignal analysts.
Compared to what the firm's data showed back in January 2024, the US 5G download speed, 5G availability, and overall network consistency champion has impressively managed to make progress across the board, thus extending its already massive lead over the competition... in one of those three departments.
T-Mobile is the US 5G speed king.
We're talking about the 5G availability field, where Verizon and AT&T are simply not playing in the same league as T-Mobile. This is a different indicator from 5G coverage, mind you, measuring the proportion of time these operators' 5G users can actually benefit from the "superior experience that 5G provides" (often, only in theory).
While that figure currently exceeds 67 percent on T-Mobile, Verizon users only spend 7.7 percent of their time connected to a 5G signal, with AT&T scoring a comparatively higher but still very modest 11.8 percent (which is also inexplicably down from 14.8 percent six months ago).
T-Mobile absolutely destroys the competition in the 5G availability contest.
What's up for Verizon and AT&T is their 5G download speed average, but because T-Mobile continues to break mind-blowing record after record in that department, there's no threatening the champion from this standpoint either. Not when said champion has incredibly reached 226.7Mbps velocity, with the silver and bronze medalists ranking pretty close to one another with solid but far from impressive 150.5 and 142.1Mbps speed scores respectively.
The overall network consistency battle is pretty evenly fought.
The aforementioned 5G coverage battle is unsurprisingly won by Magenta as well, and the same goes for the overall video, live video, games, download speed, and upload speed categories. With so many non-5G-specific victories under its belt, it certainly doesn't come as a shock that T-Mobile also takes home the top consistency prize, but that's actually one field where Verizon and AT&T have made excellent progress, with Big Red coming extremely close to an unexpected win.
T-Mobile nine, Verizon five, AT&T one
If that tally doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the current state of the US wireless industry, we don't know what will. You can hate T-Mobile with every fiber of your being for those sneaky recent price hikes and other controversial policy changes, but one of the reasons why the "Un-carrier" believes it can get away with so many "carrier" moves is exemplified in this super-comprehensive new report.
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At the end of the day, T-Mobile obliterates its arch-rivals.
Verizon's five gold medals across the overall coverage, 5G video, 5G live video, 5G games, and 5G upload categories are definitely nothing to sneeze at, but they're arguably not enough for Big Red to lay a claim to the best network title either.
It also doesn't help that this is basically the same result reported at the beginning of the year, which suggests that Verizon and AT&T are simply not growing at the right pace to mount a title challenge anytime soon. That's especially clear for AT&T, which continues to hold one network availability crown and nothing else.
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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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