Verizon leads with best mobile network experience in US

USA State of Mobile Networks

September 19th 2019

Verizon provided its subscribers with the best mobile network experience in the US, as measured using Excellent Consistent Quality – a set of thresholds used by Tutela, an independent crowdsourced data company, that represent network performance for use cases such as HD video streaming, group video calls and multiplayer online mobile gaming. Tutela collected and analyzed over 200 million speed tests from 14 million unique devices for the report, and found that 79.6% of tests from Verizon users met these thresholds. Verizon also had the highest median download throughput. 

Meanwhile, AT&T came top for Core Consistent Quality, Tutela’s metric for routine use cases such as social media image sharing or SD video streaming. T-Mobile had the highest median upload throughput, while Verizon and Sprint drew for best latency. 

Full key findings for the report were as follows:

  • Verizon is the best network for Excellent Consistent Quality by a significant margin: there’s a gap of over 5% to second-place T-Mobile, and 18% to fourth-place AT&T. Verizon’s home state of New Jersey saw the highest single operator performance in any state across the US, with 86.5% of test for Verizon meeting the Excellent threshold. Verizon’s network advantage also showed up in median download speed, where Verizon was comfortably in first place

  • The field was much more crowded for Core Consistent Quality; just four percentage points separated first-place AT&T from fourth-place Sprint

  • T-Mobile put in a strong showing, finishing as the runner-up for both Excellent and Core Consistent Quality, as well as taking the crown for the fastest upload speed

  • Verizon users spent the highest proportion of their time on 4G networks, although users of all four operators comfortably spent less than 10% of their time on 3G

 

Tom Luke, VP at Tutela commented: “These results show that, across the board, networks in the US are succeeding in generally providing a good level of experience for users trying to do core activities like VOIP calls and SD video streaming. However, the real differentiation for a successful network today is providing a good experience even when users try and use their devices for more intensive use-cases like HD video streaming. The US’s initial 5G deployments will be an invaluable first step towards ensuring these excellent quality experiences for users. However, even on the path to 5G leadership, it’s critical to continue ensuring that existing 4G networks are also delivering then outstanding levels of experience users increasingly come to expect.“

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