AT&T unseats Verizon as the nation's fastest wireless carrier

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? Move over Verizon, there’s a new speed king in town. According to PCMag’s 10th annual nationwide speed test, AT&T now offers America’s fastest mobile network, unseating Verizon’s five year run at the top.

Each year for several weeks, PCMag sends its staff across the country to gather on-the-ground data on wireless networks. This time around, testers collectively drove nearly 10,000 miles through 30 cities and 25 states, conducing some 60,000 speed tests using Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphones. Tests were run every two minutes and the results were summarized across six categories.

AT&T won or tied in 15 out of 30 cities and won or tied in every rural region. PCMag said its 5G Evolution upgrades – which aren’t technically 5G – played a key role in improving speeds this year.

Longtime champion Verizon won or tied in 12 cities / regions with T-Mobile taking home seven awards. Sprint finished with just a single win and one tie. The nation’s fourth largest carrier actually had the best download speeds in nine cities but kept losing points in other tests.

Ironically enough Cricket and Consumer Cellular – both of which use AT&T’s network – ranked higher than AT&T in PCMag’s Readers’ Choice category.

This year’s results don’t mean that Verizon or T-Mobile have worse networks than last year. In fact, all four major networks improved on speed and reliability this year, it’s just that AT&T improved more than its competitors.

Looking ahead, PCMag notes that this will be the final year of 4G-only testing. 5G is coming although in actuality, it’ll still be at least a couple of years before widespread coverage exists.

All images courtesy PCMag

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https://www.techspot.com/news/80617-att-unseats-verizon-nation-fastest-wireless-carrier.html

 

[OutlawCecil]

T-Mobile is still best service for the price. (or "Metro by T-Mobile" for even cheaper)

 

[ShagnWagn]

T-Mobile is still best service for the price. (or "Metro by T-Mobile" for even cheaper)

Have they actually improved it so you have service 10 miles outside of a major city? 15 miles now? lol
When my family and extended family/friends considered never having service on a road trip (or even in our basements), where you need it most, you are basically still paying for no service. We dropped t-mobile after years of problems. "Cheaper" does not mean anything.

 

[ckm88]

AT&T is just fill of lies. And that's all there is to it.

 

[OutlawCecil]

Have they actually improved it so you have service 10 miles outside of a major city? 15 miles now? lol
When my family and extended family/friends considered never having service on a road trip (or even in our basements), where you need it most, you are basically still paying for no service. We dropped t-mobile after years of problems. "Cheaper" does not mean anything.

Most people don't understand the technical side of it all. T-Mobile now has newer lower frequency bands (like 71) which greatly helps with signal but some phones don't support it. "I didn't get good service while traveling" depends on so many factors... My family travels and very rarely has signal issues on any of our phones and it only seems to be getting better. It's easy to say 5-7 or more years ago, we struggled with signal more than now.

 

[EClyde]

Well pass me a cigar said the fat industrialist

 

[ShagnWagn]

Most people don't understand the technical side of it all. T-Mobile now has newer lower frequency bands (like 71) which greatly helps with signal but some phones don't support it. "I didn't get good service while traveling" depends on so many factors... My family travels and very rarely has signal issues on any of our phones and it only seems to be getting better. It's easy to say 5-7 or more years ago, we struggled with signal more than now.

True, but I was referring 5-7 years ago with 5-7 years ago. Apples to apples (well, androids hah!). We all switched from t-mobile to verizon and it was a huge difference. A little bit more per month for service and you can actually use it outside of a city. Such a novel idea! lol. I would hope t-mobile has got better. It could not have got any worse. haha. But that is great it works for you.

 

[Tom7382]

Most people don't understand the technical side of it all. T-Mobile now has newer lower frequency bands (like 71) which greatly helps with signal but some phones don't support it. "I didn't get good service while traveling" depends on so many factors... My family travels and very rarely has signal issues on any of our phones and it only seems to be getting better. It's easy to say 5-7 or more years ago, we struggled with signal more than now.

True, but I was referring 5-7 years ago with 5-7 years ago. Apples to apples (well, androids hah!). We all switched from t-mobile to verizon and it was a huge difference. A little bit more per month for service and you can actually use it outside of a city. Such a novel idea! lol. I would hope t-mobile has got better. It could not have got any worse. haha. But that is great it works for you.

A lot of people especially iPhone owners hold to phones that are older than 2-3 years and lack newer LTE bands rolled out by carriers every year that extend coverage.

There is also a big difference between postpaid and prepaid. If you choose prepaid or mvno you won't have domestic roaming.

 

[JC JC JC]

T-Mobile is still best service for the price. (or "Metro by T-Mobile" for even cheaper)

Have they actually improved it so you have service 10 miles outside of a major city? 15 miles now? lol
When my family and extended family/friends considered never having service on a road trip (or even in our basements), where you need it most, you are basically still paying for no service. We dropped t-mobile after years of problems. "Cheaper" does not mean anything.

No Tmobile has not improved their signal strength. In and around downtown Denver CO I will show full LTE bars and websites will time out, calls go to voice mail, and text messages will not go through. Tmobile can not be relied upon to provide service and they don't care to improve their network in a 3+ million city.

Just because you are fast at one spot doesn't tell you if you will have signal a block away. Why don't you report on the cell companies overall network availability and reliability throughout the entire nation, including Alaska and Hawaii?

 

[tacobravo]

At least with Verizon I get signal pretty much anywhere unlike my coworkers and friends who have AT&T

 

[captaincranky]

@Shawn Knight

Honestly Shawn, it still looks like Verizon is winning in all the categories which actually matter.

I only lose internet occasionally, and then in the wee overnight hours of Saturday or Sunday, when Verizon switches servers, most likely for maintenance reasons.

For me, AT & T, along with "Ma Bell", were the utilities which held the entire country in thrall, for decades, until the Fed broke it up, are a complete no-no to do any business with, whatsoever..

During my childhood it was actually illegal to own your own phone. If you'll notice, they've managed to sneak that back into phone service with locked phones and leasing plans. I have a land line, with (somewhat ironically), a phone I purchased under the branding "AT & T, at Walmart. (I'm sure we're all aware that the "At & T, should be stenciled on in Chinese characters).

I suppose I'll get branded "senile" or similar, but I don't trust any business or individual, who only has a cell phone. (Which is immediately recognizable by the area code). I figure they might not even have an address, and could be running their "business empire" out of the front seat of their car, which BTW, might even be registered in another state.