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Verizon Has Been the Fastest US Mobile Carrier in Last Six Months: Wirefly (wirefly.com)

Posted by msmash on from the need-for-speed dept.

Verizon was the fastest mobile carrier in the United States during Q4 2017 and Q1 2018, according to 2018 Internet Speed Rankings Report published by Wirefly. According to the report, Verizon Wireless offered its subscribers 19.92 Mbps "overall" Internet speed, followed by AT&T at 18.26 Mbps, T-Mobile at 17.29 Mbps, and Sprint finishing at last with 14.77 Mbps. (The report defines overall speed capability as a summation of download speed with a 90% weight, and upload speed with a 10% weight.) T-Mobile was ranked as the fastest Internet service provider by Wirefly in Q1 and Q2 2017.

Verizon was also the carrier with fastest average download and upload speeds during the aforementioned period. It offered 20.44 Mbps (down) and 15.26 Mbps (up), compared to AT&T, which offered an average of 19.11 Mbps download speed and 10.53 Mbps as its average upload speeds. You can read the full report here. The results were collected from the results of users using the Wirefly Internet Speed Test.

8 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Are they still evil? by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

    Hint: Nearly all of the US mainline carriers are "evil", as it's on a spectrum. Their primary goal is to extract as much money as they can while providing as little as possible (without angering you enough to jump to a competitor.) This is part of why I use a secondary carrier - I buy my own device, then to with Net10 (or StraightTalk, or similar) - do a bit of research, and you can use the mainline carrier networks without paying the massive mainline carrier price. I pay $45/mo for 4GB data (which is honestly a lot more than I use), and there's no contract, ETF, or similar lock-in bullshit. Yeah, my phone costs me a bit up-front (I buy an unlocked one one-two generations back from bleeding-edge, then keep it for 2-3 years depending), but I'm not paying subsidy (plus massive interest) over a two-year contract.
    --
    As a bonus, I use Verizon's network just fine, get all the speed and coverage benefits, but I don't have to pay $100/mo. or so just for my one phone. Over the past 5 years I've done this, I've most likely saved around $2700 ($3300 minus the $300 for my current phone, bought two years ago and minus the $300 or so for my previous phone), or the price of a quite nice MacBook Pro.
    --
    Mind, if you're a massive data user, this may not work as well for you, and you'll probably want to do an unlimited plan. If you want something to show off (a bleeding-edge latest-greatest device), then you'd have to pay more up-front (but still save quite a few ducats in the process). However, for my somewhat fairly typical use case (maybe 3GB/mo and a phone that does what I want it to - shit, I'm married, who am I supposed to impress with an iPhone X or the latest Samsung Galaxy?) It works out quite nicely.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  2. Re:Are they still evil? by olsmeister · · Score: 3

    Then Verizon discovered they didn't have to be great, just a little better.

    Once I discovered this little gem, my life improved immensely. I think I'm going to put it on my gravestone.

  3. Twice the price by hunter44102 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For double the price of T-Mobile I would hope they are faster. But it looks like not much

  4. Re:Are they still evil? by MightyYar · · Score: 2

    This can only be true if you are adding a line to an existing plan. Your average per phone is higher than that.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  5. Does it matter? by b0bby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I get that it's great that infrastructure is improving, but does this really matter? Once you get above a certain point (for me, on a phone, that's about 3 Mbps) it's "fast enough" and other factors become more important. For me, those are basically cost and coverage. Verizon is bad on cost, good on coverage, so for me, AT&T through Cricket is the better choice - lower cost and almost as good coverage. Sprint coverage around me is not good enough; T-Mo coverage is just barely good enough. All are plenty fast for what I need a phone to do.

    1. Re:Does it matter? by mlw4428 · · Score: 2

      Your mistake is looking at this from a "you" perspective. Frankly no one cares about what's good enough for YOU. I want 1000000000000000Tbps. It doesn't exist yet...but that's MY personal speed threshold and I'd be willing to pay the carrier who is closest to that number my dollars. So it matters, maybe not to you, but honestly you don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Neither do I really.

    2. Re:Does it matter? by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 2

      Agreed. Bandwidth is great but it's high enough now that it's not as important. What I'd be interested in seeing is latency and "connectedness" if that makes sense. How long does it take for me to load main page, and click a few levels deep, on the top 100 websites? What if I haven't been using my phone for an hour? How often do I open up an app and it just spins for 5 seconds while things get connected?

  6. Re:T-mobile by Mattcelt · · Score: 2

    Verizon: 11% faster than T-mobile. And 1000% worse to deal with.