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T-Mobile owns the US for 5G coverage, with Verizon and AT&T trailing way behind
- A new report shows T-Mobile 5G coverage in the US blows away the competition.
- Even when you combine Verizon and AT&T’s 5G availability, T-Mobile beats them by almost double.
- T-Mobile also dominates in 5G download speeds and is nearly equal to AT&T and Verizon in all other categories.
Every quarter, Opensignal posts stats from crowdsourced data on wireless carriers. It does this by collecting billions of measurements every day from 100 million devices globally. This quarter, we have a report focusing on 5G experiences for United States customers on the Big Three: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
Although not too much has changed in this realm compared to previous quarters, this new report sends home one conclusion: T-Mobile 5G coverage is second to none in the US.
First, let’s talk about the most important aspect of 5G: accessibility. In the chart below, you can see how each of the Big Three compare when it comes to the percent of time customers have access to 5G service.
That magenta line sure is long. Doing the math, T-Mobile is so far ahead of Verizon and AT&T that if you combined the two carriers’ networks, T-Mobile would still be nearly twice as reliable when it comes to 5G coverage.
Obviously, 5G coverage isn’t everything. There are plenty of times that connecting to a 5G network would be less efficient than a 4G connection in that same spot. However, if 5G connectivity is important to you, only one of the Big Three is worth investing in at this point.
T-Mobile 5G coverage: Other data
T-Mobile is also dominating the competition when it comes to 5G download speeds. Check out the chart below to see the average download speed Opensignal users experienced on Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile:
Once again, if super-fast 5G download speeds are important to you, then T-Mobile is your best choice.
Elsewhere in the report, we see T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon basically neck and neck. In video, live video, game, and voice app experiences, T-Mobile is only ever a point or two away from Verizon, which takes the lead. Notably, Verizon leads for 5G upload speeds but beats T-Mobile by just 0.3Mbps, so they’re basically the same.
This data helps explain why pretty much all of T-Mobile’s advertising focuses on its 5G leads over competitors.