OpenSignal has released their collection of data from cellular providers over the dates of September 16 to December 14 of 2022. It will be no surprise to some of us that in these cellular reports, T-Mobile has won out above the rest, yet again.
On the mobile network experience report, multiple factors were tested. For overall experience, the cellular report included video, games, voice app, download speed, and upload speed. For coverage, they checked availability across the providers. Lastly, they checked for consistency in excellent quality and core quality.
Experience and coverage might make sense, but what about consistency? Per OpenSignal, “Consistent Quality measures how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. It measures download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, time to first byte and the percentage of tests attempted which did not succeed due to a connectivity issue on either the download or server response component.”
Core Consistent Quality represents common, but less demanding use cases such as SD video streaming, web browsing, and email use. Excellent Consistent Quality is designed for higher quality applications such as live video streaming and streaming video games. See how Consistent quality metrics are calculated here.
The only awards that T-Mobile did not take was in the Availability section. That award goes to the previous champion, AT&T. AT&T and Verizon were only 0.2 percentage points away from each other. T-Mobile came up last with a score of 98%.
OpenSignal’s 5G Experience Report awards were a bit of a toss up between Verizon and T-Mobile. The UnCarrier took a slight lead by winning in 4 categories (download and upload speeds, as well as availability and reach), versus Verizon’s 3 (Video, Games, and Voice app experiences). Much like the mobile network experience report, the 5G cellular report tests the same categories, but with 5G specifically, and less the consistency awards. Instead, in coverage, they checked both availability and reach.
Experience awards were all quite close, with Verizon just barely winning out over T-Mobile. The only exception being 5G download speeds. T-Mobile was the clear winner here, topping out at 186.3 Mbps versus 84.9 Mbps from Verizon and 71.1 Mbps from AT&T. Regarding coverage and 5G Availability, T-Mobile won again with a far lead of 30% over its closest competitor, AT&T.
Per OpenSignal, “5G Reach measures the 5G mobile experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users – i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel. 5G Reach for each operator is measured on a scale from 0 to 10.” The results were a bit closer on this one. With a score of 8.3, T-Mobile had a little over a 2 point lead ahead of AT&T and about 4 points from Verizon.
Something to keep in mind when reviewing the results for yourself – tests were done at the national and regional level. While T-Mobile may be the majority winner, take note of the winners in your state. You may find a different provider is more appropriate.
