Things have been relatively quiet on the US 5G front for the last few months, with no big breakthroughs, major speed improvements, or network expansions touted by any of the nation's top three wireless service providers in quite some time.
Of course, that doesn't mean Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T are not diligently working behind the scenes to move the industry forward across the board. In addition to RootMetrics, whose nationwide 5G scorecards are updated rather frequently nowadays, Opensignal has also been keeping a close eye on the progress of the aforementioned triad.
And the overall speed and availability champion is...
T-Mobile. Admit it, you kind of expected more suspense there. But if you're the least bit familiar with Opensignal's 5G user experience tests, you probably saw the "Un-carrier's" victories coming from a mile away.
Incredibly enough, T-Mo managed to widen its already impressive lead over AT&T and Verizon in both 5G availability and download speeds, which are arguably the two most important aspects of the overall wireless network experience for most regular users.
5G availability, mind you, measures the actual time spent by the average user connected to a "next-gen" signal (be it low, mid, or high-band 5G), and for what it's worth, AT&T joined T-Mobile in boosting that number from April while Verizon disappointingly and inexplicably went down from 11.2 percent back then to 10.5 percent right now, which is lightyears behind Magenta's towering 36.3 percent score.
Perhaps even more impressively, T-Mobile jumped from an average 5G download speed of 71.3 to no less than 87.5 Mbps in the space of just three months, absolutely smoking both Verizon (which slightly improved its figures) and AT&T (which actually lost a couple of Mbps).
It's not all bad for Verizon... but it's pretty bad for AT&T
While T-Mobile won another two titles in addition to the 5G availability and download speed crowns in this latest comprehensive report, its 5G reach and 5G upload speed advantages dropped from April, as AT&T and Verizon respectively managed to boost their scores by a bigger margin.
Big Red in particular showed great progress as far as 5G uploads are concerned, a fairly important area where Magenta essentially (and statistically) stood still while AT&T fell off a cliff.
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Despite considerably improving its 5G reach, aka the proportion of locations a user visits that have a 5G signal, as well as sharing the 5G video experience award with Verizon, AT&T can't possibly be content with the results of Opensignal's mid-March to mid-June 2021 tests.
That's because Ma Bell used to be the industry's sole 5G video experience champion, as well as its 5G voice app experience leader while also sharing the 5G games experience crown with Verizon as of April 2021.
That's all gone in Big Red's favor, although it's definitely worth pointing out that the 5G games experience and 5G voice app experience leads may not be significant enough for many of you to notice them out in the real world.
What you're likely to notice with ease is T-Mobile's disadvantage in those two categories, as well as the 5G video experience field. In other words, there's (still) no such thing as a perfect 5G network stateside, and depending on your specific mobile phone needs and usage habits, you might be better off subscribing to Big Red or Magenta (definitely not AT&T, though, at least according to Opensignal).
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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