T-Mobile Named Fastest US Mobile Carrier by New Wirefly Report (phonedog.com)

T-Mobile offered the fastest internet speed to subscribers between Q1 and Q2 of 2017 (which ended in June), according to the Wirefly Speed Test, which combed through thousands of test results made using its service. T-Mobile scored highest in overall speed while Verizon ended up with a close second spot, Wirefly, which doesn't require Java or Flash for its tests, added. AT&T and Sprint rounded out the ranking at third and fourth, respectively, the report added, which was done in collaboration with SourceForge. T-Mobile also topped the chart for offering the fastest mobile download speed. An anonymous user writes: T-Mobile offered 22.18 Mbps download speed, while Verizon Wireless ended up with another close second with 21.45 Mbps download. AT&T came in with an average download speed of 17.00 Mbps, and Sprint was trailing all with 15.76 Mbps. Verizon finished with the fastest average upload speed at 16.06 Mbps. You can read the full report here.

Comments

They are all fast enough for me

[b0bby]

Speedwise, they are all fast enough for me - in fact I'm happy with my throttled Cricket service (8Mbps). I'm more interested in coverage, and I found AT&T's to be better for me when I switched from T-Mobile. Both were better coverage than Sprint for me too, but I think Verizon is better yet. I'm just unwilling to pay the Verizon premium.

Re:They are all fast enough for me

[silverkniveshotmail.]

Cheap prepaid services like Cricket and Virgin are fine in urban areas but they don't offer any roaming at all. When I drove from Tacoma to Detroit with Virgin I went days without service.

Re:They are all fast enough for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap prepaid services like Cricket and Virgin are fine in urban areas but they don't offer any roaming at all. When I drove from Tacoma to Detroit with Virgin I went days without service.

Cricket IS AT&T only prepaid and throttled max speed. Cricket will work anywhere that AT&T will.

Re:They are all fast enough for me

[b0bby]

True, but the AT&T network is pretty good. For 99% of the time it's fine for me, and when I'm really in the sticks I'm quite happy to also be off the grid.

Re: They are all fast enough for me

[kletus]

Same here. I'm in a very rural area and get between 1 and 2 bars with an average download speed of ~6 mbps. I stream 100+ gigs of DirectvNow across that monthly for about $53. It's all a matter of what you need.

Re: They are all fast enough for me

[jnork]

Yes, it is my fault your video stutters. Because I shouldn't be watching video on your bandwidth. Also, it's my fault your bill is increasing.

Re:They are all fast enough for me

[squiggleslash]

Cricket is an AT&T brand. Virgin is an MVNO that currently uses the Sprint network. "Roaming", in the US, is something people worried about in the 1990s when there were 600 different AMPS networks rather than four nationwide LTE networks.

Re:They are all fast enough for me

[silverkniveshotmail.]

I'm not talking about roaming from a billing perspective I'm talking about being able to make calls on other networks.

Re:They are all fast enough for me

[TheCastro1689]

Except on AT&T microcells.You can't add Cricket numbers to the allowable list.

Re: They are all fast enough for me

[Trondheim]

Sometimes wireless is the only option in rural areas. Do you expect everyone to live in a city?

Re: They are all fast enough for me

[ShaneNorman]

Virgin is actually a Sprint brand. It has not been an MVNO for a while now.

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

-- Posted from a Verizon phone

First Reply

[jfdavis668]

-- Posted from an Apple //c

Fast means nothing

[OzPeter]

If you don't have coverage where you want it then it don't mean shit how fast your network is.

T-Mobile .. I'm looking at you. My house is in a dead spot surrounded by T-Mobile towers.

Re:Fast means nothing

[jbmartin6]

If your house is surrounded by towers and you get no signal, isn't the problem with your house?

Re:Fast means nothing

[Tailhook]

You might want to look at your phone. T-mobile has been investing in its LTE network, but many phones can't operate on the newer LTE band frequencies. I just replaced my wife's phone with a Motorola g5 plus because it has a new radio and gets these LTE bands. It was a huge improvement over the Nexus 4 she was using. Lookup your phone's LTE band capabilities and see if that isn't your problem.

Re:Fast means nothing

[preflex]

You could have just replaced your wife's Nexus 4's modem firmware.

The 33-107-hybrid firmware works for me. I get 35-40 mbps on T-Mobile on my mako.

Bonus: Set your TTL to 65 on tethered devices to avoid throttling.

Re:Fast means nothing

[Tailhook]

Firmware changes won't do it. The phone needs the right RF filters to function on these the expanded LTE bands. Just because you can get LTE firmware doesn't mean you'll get the benefit of newer frequencies. For instance, Band 66 is wider than Band 4, so you need a transceiver with filters adapted to the expanded band. Band 12 is a relatively low frequency, which provides long range, but is far out of band for the filters in older devices. Another issue is VoLTE support (voice over LTE); it's not available on every device yet whether it's physically possible or not; Nexus 4 can't do it no matter what firmware you load.

The Moto g5 plus is certified by T-mobile to function on all of their bands and support VoLTE as well. That makes it a good budget phone choice if you're on T-mobile.

T-mobile doesn't have the capital to compete with Verizon et al. on the traditional frequencies so they've invested in newer frequency bands as the FCC has auctioned them. You need to pay close attention to your phone's capabilities if you care about coverage and performance with T-mobile. Even flagship phones available today can't get the full benefits; you have to investigate the device.

Anecdata

[rsborg]

If you don't have coverage where you want it then it don't mean shit how fast your network is.

T-Mobile .. I'm looking at you. My house is in a dead spot surrounded by T-Mobile towers.

Just a counter anecdote - my house gets great coverage for T-Mobile whereas Verizon is impossible and AT&T is spotty. I've been in city centers (LV, BOS, NY) where I had signal on TMO LTE while my VZ and ATT coworkers had none.

Driving cross country is about the only place where other networks beat TMO but then again, out of 3 networks we had none driving through southern Oregon.

Have a second carrier on standby

[93 Escort Wagon]

T-Mobile works pretty well where I live and work (Seattle-Tacoma area) - where T-Mobile is bad, all the carriers seem to be bad. But when we go visit the inlaws in far NE Washington state, T-Mobile's coverage dies somewhat north of Spokane.

So what we did is purchase a Verizon iPad. Most of the time it's not subscribed to a data plan; but, when we're going to travel, we'll preload one of the Verizon prepaid plans (e.g. 5GB for $60). That works well enough for wi-fi calling and provides a small amount of data for use during our visit.

Re:Have a second carrier on standby

[starblazer]

from someone who doesn't live in a major metro... this is the opposite. I can go where T-mobile doesn't exist (no roaming either) and everyone else does.

I love T-mobile for the customer-friendly aspects of it (binge on, tmo tuesdays, wifi calling that actually works, intl roaming)... but I value coverage more than that and everyone else has them beat with the exception of cheap international roaming...

+1 insightful

[mccrew]

Posting to remove accidental mod

Ill Named

[sdinfoserv]

I have a Verizon work phone and a TMobile personal phone . I also a frequent hiker and camper and travel less populated areas . I live in Washington State where TMobile is headquartered. Even here, most of the time Verizon works while TMobile has zero bars.