OpenSignal has released its latest Mobile Network Experience Report for July. T-Mobile took first place in the category of U.S. download dataspeed with an average of 23.6Mbps. That topped Verizon's 22.9Mbps speed and AT&T's 22.5Mbps. Sprint was dead last with an average speed of 19.2Mbps. While AT&T actually had the fastest 4G LTE download speed at 24.6Mbps versus 24.3Mbps for T-Mobile, the latter's faster 3G speeds (4.2Mbps compared with 3.3Mbps) put it over the top. T-Mobile also led the way in upload dataspeed with an average of 7.3Mbps compared to 6.9Mbps for Verizon, 4.9Mbps for AT&T and 2.4Mbps for Sprint.


Network availability is an important category since subscribing to a great network doesn't matter if you can't access it. Verizon customers were able to connect to Big Red's cellular network a leading 94.8% of the time. T-Mobile was next at 94.2% followed by AT&T and Sprint at 89.6% and 89.5%, respectively. Network responsiveness is also key to a great user experience on a wireless provider's network. Also known as latency, the lower the number, the faster each network responded to its users. AT&T and T-Mobile tied for the crown here. The former had an average reading of 52.5ms and T-Mobile was just .1ms slower at 52.6ms. Both topped Verizon (56.8ms) and Sprint (59.8ms).


Verizon did well in U.S. metro markets with an average 42.4Mbps download speed in New York City

Video experience measures loading times and interruptions to help OpenSignal calculate a score. Verizon had the highest tally in this category at 56.1 followed by the 51.7 score awarded to T-Mobile. Sprint's 47.5 score placed it third with AT&T's 46.5 rating placing it last.

"The pitched battle between T-Mobile and Verizon over download speed rages on. In our last report, the operators fought to a stalemate in our Download Speed Experience metric, but in this data collection period, T-Mobile gained the advantage. It won our Download Speed Experience award with a score of 23.6 Mbps. In this report, though, the speed war gained a new combatant. Not only was Verizon right behind T-Mobile in our download speed analysis, so was AT&T. "

"AT&T's speed renaissance is likely a result of its upgrades to current 4G infrastructure, which AT&T has chosen to brand as 5G E, adding LTE-Advanced technologies like carrier aggregation, more sophisticated modulation schemes and supplemental unlicensed spectrum. Although 5G E is more of a marketing term than a true 5G technology, the 4G enhancements it represents have definitely had a real impact on the consumer mobile experience of AT&T’s users, as a recent OpenSignal analysis has shown."-OpenSignal



Looking at the regional results, Verizon had the fastest average download speed found in any U.S. metropolitan market, 42.4Mbps in New York City. Verizon also averaged 10Mbps upload speeds in eight major cities including New York and Chicago. In the category of network responsiveness, OpenSignal noted that AT&T's LTE-Advanced upgrades (which it calls 5G Evolution) helped the wireless provider offer faster latency speeds as low as 40ms in some markets like Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Francisco.


OpenSignal's crowdsourced data comes from the company's iOS and Android apps that can be installed on handsets from the App Store and Google Play Store, respectively. The data came in from 1,412,551 devices that provided a total of 5,632,817,140 data points between March 16th through June 13th of this year.