T-Mobile is boasting about its 5G service again, with an announcement that it came out on top in a new Ookla study. This measured things like 5G speed, performance and availability. In the announcement, they added that it would be moving forward with turning on its 5G carrier aggregation (CA), both with 2.5 GHz and 2.5 Ghz combined with 600 MHz.
Ookla’s nationwide network performance analysis had T-Mobile at the top of all 6 categories. These include: fastest provider, latency, consistency, 5G performance, 5G availability and 5G consistency. Considering the 5G coverage T-Mobile has had in place compared to its competitors, it’s not much surprise they ruled here. This is in part thanks to their ability to rollout coverage on mid-band spectrum that isn’t causing interference risks like the C-Band is for AT&T and Verizon.
According to an article from FierceWireless, the mid-band spectrum they are using (2.5 GHz), which was acquired from Sprint, provides about 40% faster speeds. Currently, download speeds are running at a top average speed of 187 Mbps nationwide. According to T-Mobile, this is faster than most home WiFi connections, two times faster than Verizon 5G and over 2.5 times faster than AT&T 5G. More importantly, customers were more likely to connect to 5G than Verizon or AT&T customers. Again, this could simply be due to the delays both carriers have experienced with their 5G rollouts.
With regards to the 5G carrier aggregation, this combines two channels of 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum for greater speed and capacity. It’s much like bonding in this case, but happens within the one carrier’s network. This should allow for less congestion as there will be more service to go around.
5G standards set the maximum bandwidth for a sub-6 GHz 5G channel at 100 MHz of spectrum. That is a lot of capacity, but with 5G CA, the operator is able to provide customers with more than 100 MHz of 2.5 GHz Ultra Capacity 5G spectrum, starting with 120 MHz in many places. So, customers in those areas will see a significant boost in speed and performance.
According to T-Mobile, tests have been completed that show 2.5 GHz 5G CA can improve speeds by about 20%. Also, devices reach speeds greater than 100 Mbps twice as often as those without 5G carrier aggregation. In addition, T-Mobile noted that it’s expanded NR CA with 2.5 GHz and 600 MHz to cities across the country.
“These capabilities are live across much of T-Mobile’s network today for customers with the Samsung Galaxy S21 and another popular flagship device, becoming more broadly available – with additional devices – in the coming months,” said a T-Mobile representative.
T-Mobile also highlighted results of record-breaking 5G upload speeds with 5G Dual Connectivity. The test was done by Ericsson and Qualcomm. They found T-Mobile exceeded 1 Gbps on upload – 1005 Mbps, to be precise – by combining 2.5 GHz spectrum with millimeter wave.
“Today’s wins confirm what over a dozen other studies have found in the last year: T-Mobile 5G is #1 in performance and/or coverage,” said T-Mobile President of Technology Neville Ray in a statement. “Our competitors bet on the wrong spectrum for 5G. Now, they’re years behind and scrambling to catch up. We’ll keep blazing ahead, reaching more and more people with Ultra Capacity 5G and spearheading new technologies. This is what you get when you combine the best damn 5G network with the hardest working team in the industry.”