T-Mobile retains 5G crown as AT&T falls massively behind Verizon in standalone access

While we’re used to seeing the little 5G at the top of our phone screens, getting to this point was anything but smooth. At the start of 5G, coverage often relied on a retrofit of LTE. T-Mobile managed to make it to market with the first true 5G. Verizon and AT&T lagged behind, but now we’re a year into all three major US carriers offering nationwide networks. Just as this anniversary hits, a report has come out that compares all three.

First, let’s establish what is meant by true 5G or, as it’s often referred to, 5G standalone (5G SA). For 5G SA performance, there needs to be 5G infrastructure the whole way through instead of a network cobbled together from some new 5G tech and a 4G LTE core. T-Mobile brought 5G SA to a limited number of customers in 2019 and ramped up to full nationwide coverage in April 2025. AT&T initially began 5G SA coverage in 2022, and officially launched its nationwide network in October of last year. And Verizon started rolling it out in 2022 and largely has nationwide 5G SA coverage now.

A new study from Opensignal examines the impact that 5G SA has had on customers. It found that while T-Mobile 5G users had access to 5G SA 71.2% of the time, Verizon customers had it just 20.2% of the time and AT&T subscribers had it at a paltry 4.4% of the time.

Availability isn’t everything though. AT&T performs better than T-Mobile when it comes to what Opensignal calls “Consistent Quality,” which is how well a network allows users to get done what they need to get done on their phones. AT&T is at 88.9% when it comes to the metric, while Verizon is at 86.4% and T-Mobile is at 85.1%. AT&T also has the best download speed at 344.7 Mbps, as well as the best upload speed at 22.6 Mbps, though Opensignal notes that could be in part because there is less network load from a more limited pool of users.

One of the top promises of 5G was that it would make for lower latency, and in that, T-Mobile is also ahead, though just barely. The latency on T-Mobile is 40.2 milliseconds. AT&T is close with 40.6 milliseconds and Verizon is at 42.9 milliseconds.

There’s no rest for any of the carriers, though, because 6G is already making headlines and raising expectations.