T-Mobile claims Verizon has lost its coverage advantage

It used to be the case that Verizon was the network to go to if you travelled across the US a lot, as the carrier offered the best coverage up and down the country. Not so anymore says T-Mobile, the company claims that its network reaches 99.7 percent of the consumers that Verizon does.

That isn’t to say that T-Mobile has completely matched Verizon in terms of total US coverage area quite yet, but the company covers essentially as many populated locations as Verizon does. The carrier’s claim is also backed up by research from third parties. OpenSignal’s August report into the US market found that T-Mobile offers a 4G LTE connection 83.2 percent of the time in its tests. Verizon narrowly edges ahead with a result of 85.9 percent.

““I’m calling it. Verizon’s coverage advantage is gone … Now, Verizon’s rebranding their older, slower network as ‘LTE Advanced,’ highlighting technology we launched two years ago. Even with their ‘new’ technology T-Mobile’s LTE network is still faster – just ask OpenSignal, Ookla or the FCC,” – Neville Ray, T-Mobile

As well as taking aim at Verizon’s coverage, T-Mobile has also again attacked Verizon’s recently announced speed boost. Verizon rolled out 4G LTE-Advanced connections to 460 cities in the US earlier in the year, and boasted about a 50 percent improvement to data speeds for consumers in these areas. However, T-Mobile responded by stating that it had launched its own LTE-A coverage all the way back in 2014.

T-Mobile’s style may be rather abrasive these days, but the drastic changes made to the business appear to have been paying off. The carrier claims that its September subscriber performance metrics have already surpassed the whole of Q2 2016.  Apparently, customers continue to be moving away from the other big three towards its service, with almost 1 million customers making the switch.

What about your personal experiences? Have you made the switch to T-Mobile recently, and do you think that its network lives up to the speed and coverage claims? Sound off in the comments below.