2013 U.S. Wireless Network Tests: AT&T Fastest, Verizon Most Reliable

adeelarshad82 writes "For the fourth year running, PCMag sent drivers out on U.S. roads to test the nation's Fastest Mobile Networks. Using eight identical Samsung phones, the drivers tested out eight separate networks for four major carriers across 30 cities evenly spread across six regions. Using Sensorly's 2013 software, a broad suite of tests were conducted every three minutes: a 'ping' to test network latency, multi-threaded HTTP upload and download tests including separate 'time to first byte' measures, a 4MB single-threaded file download, a 2MB single-threaded file upload, the download of a 1MB Web page with 70 elements, and 100kbps and 500kbps UDP streams designed to simulate streaming media. Nearly 90,000 data cycles later, the data not only revealed the fastest networks (AT&T) and the most consistent (Verizon), but also other interesting points. The tests recorded the fastest download speed (66.11 Mbits/sec) in New Orleans and the best average in Austin (27.25 Mbits/sec), both for AT&T's LTE network. The tests also found T-Mobile's HSPA network to have the worst Average-Time-To-First-Byte, even when compared with AT&T HSPA network. Also according to the tests, Sprint's LTE network didn't even come close to competing with other LTE networks, to the point that in some cities its LTE network speed averaged less than T-Mobile's HSPA network speed."

Comments

Re:Which one is more NSA-friendly?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

The one without wires.

Verizon does have the best coverage

[Lucas123]

I don't like their service, pricing models or willingness to disclose my information to the prying eyes of the government, but in terms of mobile coverage, I guess you get what you pay for. And, I almost never drop a call.

Re:Verizon does have the best coverage

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I was looking closely at their month-to-month offerings, but their Android devices were all neutered versions of the contract versions. There is a lengthy process of converting an S4 or HTC One into a month-to-month phone but it requires a sacrificial lamb (a month-to-month device) and if Verizon catches wind of your rooting, you'll be dropped like a call on Sprint and be out the cash you spent on both devices.

I'm sticking with T-Mobile and my Nexus 4. HSPA is fast enough for my remote browsing needs and in most places I'm surrounded by WiFi anyway. I admit that they're not the most reliable or the fastest, but they are the most consumer friendly.

Re:Verizon does have the best coverage

[Cigamit]

I am in the same boat. Verizon is the only carrier to have coverage in my area, so switching isn't an option. They have been dangling the upgrade carrot in front of me since 2011 (when my contract was up), but I haven't upgraded yet. Switching to the cheapest new plan with only 1GB of data is $20 more expensive per month than my current unlimited plan (and thats after my Employee discount). So its technically cheaper in the long run for me to buy a new phone outright and keep the old plan considering they want to charge me $200 still for the "upgrade", then another $35 "upgrade fee", plus the extra $20 per month for less data.

Re:Verizon does have the best coverage

[Cigamit]

I live out in farm country in Central Texas, NW of College Station, E of Temple, SE of Waco. The closest small "town" is ~7 miles away, most of that is down a dirt road. Its 45m - 1h to any major city to go grocery shopping (ironic considering the food is grown out here) and I only have 4-5 neighbors within a 5 mile radius. I had Sprint when I moved out here, but after their agent looked at their map they let me drop my contract for lack of service without penalty. I switched to Alltel (where I got my unlimited plan) and then Verizon bought them out.

My closest neighbor has AT&T but the service is bad enough that he has to take most calls outside his house (not going to cut it when you work from home like I do). Their coverage map shows my area as "MODERATE: The areas shown in the light orange should have sufficient signal strength for on-street or in-the-open coverage, but may not have it for in-vehicle coverage or in-building coverage." Even that is really being over generous.

Last time my friend with TMobile came over, he had to stand on top of truck to get even any signal, but then couldn't successfully talk for more than a few minutes. He said he pretty much loses most of his signal 15 minutes outside of most major towns. Their coverage map shows my area as "Service Partner: Check your plan for speeds, no access for laptop sticks, tablets, etc..."

Even with Verizon, I get 1-3 bars depending on which side of the house I am on, rarely does a call drop, but there are times when my phone just never rings. 3G? I get dial speeds on it when it does work at all. Luckily there is a WISP near me for internet, even if they are super expensive ($150 for 3Mbps). To get a hard line ran out to my house they want to charge me by the foot, and its a long way.

It certainly is peaceful out here though, and I can look out my back window and know that I own everything I can see (or the bank does for the time being at least).

Re:Verizon does have the best coverage

[enos]

T-Mobile doesn't seem to mind what you do. The branded G2X even came with Android's mobile hotspot feature enabled. I spent many months tethering as my primary way to get internet at home, and a friend still does. Note that you need a good phone to have descent Skype, the G2X is too slow. It works much better with the desktop client going through the tether than the Android client.

It seems faster phones give faster service as well. The G2X would top out at about 1 Mbps, but I've gotten 16Mbps/5Mbps (up/down) on my Nexus 4.

The first-to-byte measurements are important, though. I get ping times of 300-600ms. That kind of latency makes VOIP annoying sometimes. I find Skype handles the latency better than others like Viber or Tango.

Data Caps

[asicsolutions]

I did read the article.
I'm surprised part of the rankings didn't address this.
I have Sprint and I have used upwards of 8GB in a month, something prohibitive with another carrier.

T-mobile the one that doesn't cost a damn fortune

[TWiTfan]

Seriously Verizon, $120+ for a basic data/voice plan?

What is boils down to:

[mu51c10rd]

AT&T - Fastest
Verizon - Reliable
TMobile - Cheapest
Sprint - Service

Re:What is boils down to:

[ImprovOmega]

That is a fact. I was willing to put up with Sprint's craptacular 2g network where I live, since I was mostly using it for voice at the time, but a handful of issues with my wife's phone and we packed up and went to Verizon. Lo and behold! Friendly service, no dropped calls, no weird echo-feedback on the line, competent 3g speeds, and once their share-everything plan came down the pipe, reasonable pricing! I will never go back to Sprint. What good is unlimited data anyway when your "4g" connection only lets you maybe download at 3g speeds anyway.

bad time to be testing this

[Tumbleweed]

T-Mobile's LTE roll-out is about to get serious, and they claim they'll have around 200 million people in the U.S. covered by the end of the year (with rumors of my beloved Seattle area getting it by the end of this month). Sprint's LTE roll-out is also chugging along.

The landscape will look very different by year's end.

Re:T-mobile the one that doesn't cost a damn fortu

[rsborg]

Seriously Verizon, $120+ for a basic data/voice plan?

Absent my equipment loans (ie, what a carrier subsidy should be - ie, limited duration, can pay of early to unlock completely, etc), I pay $110 for 5 lines. Each with it's own 500MB+tethering.

I get HD Voice on my iPhone5s (great for me and the wife to actually hear each other on the commute home), and unlike AT&T customers, I had Facetime over cellular for the past 2 months.

I used to pay around $100 for a single line on Verizon (wife paid same for AT&T).

The *only* downside is that data in very large buildings (museum, costco) can be literally zero. If you work in a large shielded building and don't have internal wifi, then you might want to reconsider - but that's what the test drive period is for. For all other things, tmobile has been about as reliable as either AT&T or VZ for a whole lot less and with better voice.

Sprint people are good, service is awful here

[Entropius]

Sprint is the only cellphone company that has treated me like a person. But -- here in Washington DC -- their service is garbage. It's so bad that I have to constantly ask voice callers to repeat themselves because of dropped frames. At home I have to pick up the phone with "Let me call you back on skype".

There is LTE service randomly in random places, but never consistently or predictably.

Re:Sprint people are good, service is awful here

[pixelpusher220]

It's that cities are hard, Sprint literally has no LTE coverage in DC...at all. They're busy rolling it out to great bustling places like Chattanooga, but not the fscking nations capitol. If you look at their coverage maps for the DC region, Baltimore is mostly covered, the I-81 corridor to the west is covered, south is covered, but DC and suburbs? Not a drip of anything decent.

Our contract is up in a couple months and Verizon is looking pretty good depending on the deal I can get. I'm happy to pay for service, Sprint needs to up its game in a big big way or it's going bye bye

Re:Sprint people are good, service is awful here

[Isca]

Expect Sprint to get a lot better very soon.

On June 30th the nextel iDen network will be shut down. This operates in 5 mhz chunks in the lower half of the 800mhz range nationwide. In many rural areas they have already transitioned most of their services to the same range and have kept 2 chunks of frequencies in the 800mhz range for iden customers but in urban areas they still had a Million customers on iden as of May 1 and they can't convert any part of those frequencies over. Especially in DC with all kinds of government contracts.

Once these are shut down they can start freeing using that bandwidth for LTE or CDMA. In most areas of the country they have already preconfigured equipment to use the new frequencies after this shutdown happens and will be enabling this with just a software load on the new equipment.

Re:Sprint

[stephanruby]

Nope, T-Mobile offers one as well.

And even with their limited plans, you don't have a cap - you just get throttled to EDGE speeds if you go above the cap.

Which may be true for some peoeple, but in my case, whenever I get above the 2 GB threshold on T-Mobile, it takes me to edge, but then it's soo slow, everything and anything I try to use just times out (even email).

Now don't get me wrong, the Unlimited data plan for Sprint is also a lie. First of all, Sprint tacks on a dummy $10 premium data fee, which they don't mention when they compare their rates with their competitors in advertisements (the fact that the FTC or the FCC hasn't fined them for false advertisement is beyond me). Plus their 4G unlimited data used to be great in my home apartment, but then it got so bad, I couldn't even get 1 single byte of data even on 3G using their network (even thought, I never changed my home address, they're the ones who either became oversubscribed, or shut down towers in my area a year or two ago). Sprint should just have called their data plan the Unlimited Data Premium No-data plan, that would have been more truthful.

Re:Which one is more NSA-friendly?

[Miamicanes]

Sprint is probably the least-interesting to the NSA. Their data service is so dysfunctional, not even criminals and terrorists will use them anymore.

Re:Which one is more NSA-friendly?

[YoopDaDum]

From the article:

T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 network hides a secret. While it delivers excellent sustained download speeds, those speeds don't look as fast in real life because of a very long time to negotiate the connection, which we measured as "time to first byte." This seemed to have to do with the network frequently switching between UMTS and HSPA+ modes when a connection was opened.

That explains the higher time to first byte compared to ATT HSPA. And then the latency on HSPA is higher than on LTE in general (plus on LTE the data connection is always on, not set-up on demand), as one key design goal of LTE was to allow a low latency (though there can be high variation depending on each operator core network, the radio part contribution is low with LTE).