Verizon has made big strides in the 5G race

5G performance for the three largest U.S. carriers grew steadily for a year or two, but things appear to be leveling off in 2023, with near-incremental improvements reported every quarter .

But in the last three months of the year, the underdogs seem to have made great strides. According to Ookla’s latest market research, Verizon and AT&T showed 5G speeds increased by more than 20% from last quarter. This change has allowed Verizon to significantly shorten his long-standing lead over T-Mobile.

That’s not to say T-Mobile doesn’t still have a healthy lead. “Uncarrier” also saw a measurable improvement in 5G speeds compared to last time, and there’s little doubt that Verizon is starting to catch up.

Verizon closes the gap

T-Mobile’s numbers nearly plateaued last year, but rivals Verizon and AT&T saw rapid growth over the summer, and now it looks like that was more than a flash in the pan.

After crossing the 200Mbps line in January, T-Mobile leveled off, showing only a slight increase from 216.56Mbps in its April report covering the first quarter of 2023 to 221.57Mbps in October.

In the first half of 2023, T-Mobile delivered 5G speeds 65-70% faster than its closest competitor, Verizon. However, that gap narrowed significantly in the third quarter, dropping to 44% after Verizon showed his burst from 133.50Mbps to 153.79Mbps. This is a 15% speed increase.

Now, it seems like it wasn’t a one-time occurrence. Verizon just made another big jump in the fourth quarter, with Ookla’s latest report showing that Verizon is now closing in on his 200Mbps wall with median 5G speeds of 196.43Mbps. That’s a whopping 27.73% performance improvement. This kind of performance hasn’t been seen since carriers first rolled out faster C-band networks in early 2022. It’s also nearly double the increase seen in October.

More importantly, this brings Verizon closer to T-Mobile than ever before in the history of the 5G speed race. T-Mobile also saw its performance improve by nearly 8%, going from a relatively flat 200Mbps figure to 238.87Mbps, while Verizon’s jump means it currently only has a 21.6% lead. means. If this trend continues, Verizon could catch up by the end of this year.

AT&T isn’t standing still.

Verizon is currently in a very solid second place, but AT&T also has some healthy profits and continues to grow at a more steady pace. The third-place carrier saw an 18% jump from 86.01Mbps in the second quarter to 101.55Mbps in the third quarter, breaking the 100Mbps barrier for the first time in October.

While not accelerating growth in quite the same way as Verizon, AT&T increased its speeds by nearly 24% to 125Mbps in the final quarter of 2023. To put this in context, this isn’t far off from his 127.95Mbps speeds that Verizon was boasting about this time last year.

Improved coverage increases speed

Unless T-Mobile makes significant advances in 5G technology, it’s inevitable that Verizon and AT&T will eventually catch up as they continue to expand their mid-band 5G networks.

After all, raw 5G speeds aren’t getting better. The numbers in these reports are median speeds across the United States, which means they do not reflect maximum 5G performance in a single area. Also, they do not represent the best 5G speeds offered by each carrier.

The median value shows how widely mid-band 5G networks have expanded. This number will increase as more people will have access to the fastest 5G speeds, rather than being left behind on the much slower, low-band 5G networks that were originally used to deliver 5G across the country. Masu.

T-Mobile’s consistently high scores over the past few years are due to its strong lead in this area. Thanks to its merger with Sprint in 2020, T-Mobile inherited a solid piece of mid-band spectrum that can be deployed relatively quickly. This ultimately became the company’s 5G Ultra Capacity (5G UC) network, which he used to serve more than 200 million T-Mobile customers for over a year until Verizon and AT&T acquired similar spectrum. It went into operation on.

However, T-Mobile’s relatively slow growth through most of 2023 indicates that T-Mobile has reached its peak in 5G coverage. This is not surprising since the carrier has promised that its 5G UC network will cover more than 300 million people, equivalent to 90% of the US population, by the end of 2023. His recent 7% increase is likely a result of that last burst. expansion.

On the other hand, Verizon and AT&T have much more room to grow. In early 2023, Verizon announced that its faster 5G Ultra Wideband (5G UW) network had reached more than 200 million people and launched a massive push to expand its 5G UW network into rural areas. I planned it.

That push appears to be working for Verizon, as T-Mobile is currently working on cutting-edge 5G technology such as six-carrier aggregation, and it’s starting to look like Verizon may be catching up sooner than expected.

But another aspect of Ookla’s report suggests that things may not be all sunshine and roses for Verizon and AT&T customers. While median 5G speeds are overall better than ever, median overall download speeds (speeds measured across both 4G/LTE and 5G networks) tell a different story.

Specifically, Verizon and AT&T continue to lag far behind T-Mobile, with median download speeds less than half of the 188.96 Mbps median speeds experienced by T-Mobile customers. is.

Verizon and AT&T are almost tied here at 91.62Mbps and 90.82Mbps, respectively. The large difference between these 5G speeds and overall speeds suggests that more Verizon and AT&T customers are utilizing their 4G/LTE networks in places where 5G coverage is not available.

In other words, while Verizon and AT&T are rapidly rolling out mid-band 5G networks, they don’t seem to be doing much to bring even low-band 5G service to underserved areas. A T-Mobile customer is more likely to find at least some form of 5G coverage wherever he goes. This is not surprising since T-Mobile’s low-band extended range 5G network covers more than 98% of the US population.

Numbers by state

At the end of the day, getting the best cellular network performance depends entirely on where you live. Median download speeds tell you how likely you are to get the best speeds with each carrier, but they don’t tell the whole story.

The good news is that Ookla breaks down its performance numbers by state and major U.S. cities. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the overall growth, Verizon currently leads the way with second-fastest North Dakota, a jump from his 97Mbps score in October. ing.

In fact, all 10 of the fastest US states broke the 100Mbps line for the first time, significantly increasing speeds across the board. Illinois remains at the top after taking his No. 1 spot last quarter, but overall he jumped from 110Mbps to 138.89Mbps, and at T-Mobile he jumped to 199.47Mbps.

Next was North Dakota, where Verizon moved into second place, with 129.73 Mbps for all carriers, but 192.33 Mbps for Verizon customers in the state.

The District of Columbia, which had previously been in third place, dropped to sixth place, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The speed still increased from 100.83Mbps to 124.9Mbps. His T-Mobile customers in DC had download speeds of 242.56 Mbps, which was the highest of any state. However, DC still fell short of Minnesota, and from second place he fell to fourth place. Rhode Island also made a big comeback at No. 3 after being dropped from the top 10 list in October, and Nevada joined that elite speed club for the first time, coming in at No. 5.

More importantly, the top 16 states with the fastest median download speeds all scored higher than the fastest states in the October report. Penn State was his 16th at 111.7 Mbps, just ahead of Illinois’ 110.08 Mbps score in October. In total, we measured median download speeds of over 100Mbps in 26 US states.

Verizon’s win in North Dakota is notable, but the state is also a battleground state when it comes to overall download speeds, frequently bouncing back and forth between T-Mobile, Verizon, and TBA. There’s little doubt that Verizon’s growth has propelled the company to his No. 2 spot, but it’s also the only state Verizon has won. T-Mobile took the lead in 46 states and the District of Columbia, while regional carrier GCI regained the top spot in Alaska, and South Dakota and Vermont were both too close to call. However, the undecided states of Maine and Montana have now switched to T-Mobile.

There was little movement in city rankings this time. Glendale, Arizona, and Plano, Texas remain in the top two spots, while Indianapolis, Indiana, moves ahead of Minneapolis and St. Paul for fourth place. However, similar to the state scores, all cities on the list saw significant speed increases, with the top six cities seeing him top 200Mbps. Glendale jumped from 181.74Mbps to 224.51Mbps, and the top 17 cities all beat his October speed. Columbus, Ohio he fell to 17th place, but he still increased from his score of 153.78Mbps in October where he was 7th place to 183.57Mbps.

But city rankings may best reflect how far Verizon has caught up. In October, T-Mobile was the undisputed leader in nine of the top 10 cities, but this time there was no clear statistically verifiable winner, even in No. 1 Glendale. The same was true for his other 28 cities on the top 100 list. T-Mobile still held 67 spots in the top 100, but Verizon was No. 1 in only three cities: Irvine, California, Miami, Florida, and El Paso, Texas, while AT&T led in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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