With home working becoming ubiquitous, along with internet gaming and video streaming, a stable and dependable network is more important than ever. Alongside price, reliability is the key metric driving consumers’ decisions when choosing an internet connection — lightning-fast marketed speeds are irrelevant without a stable connection to use them.
This report uses Opensignal’s new Broadband Reliability Experience metric to quantify the real-world experience of our U.S. fixed broadband users. It analyzes user experience on a national level, and will be followed by a detailed report focusing on the top 50 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).
This analysis includes the five U.S. internet service providers (ISPs) with the largest coverage areas: AT&T, Spectrum (Charter), T-Mobile, Verizon, and Xfinity (Comcast). These providers are the only ones with a claim to having a nationwide footprint, with each passing more than a third of U.S. homes, per Opensignal’s Q1 2024 service territories, which leverage proprietary crowdsourced network data and the latest data from the FCC. Given the focus on national brands, all award tables are technology-agnostic and include a blend of different types of ISP technology access, e.g. cable, DSL, fixed wireless access (FWA), and fiber.
Additionally, we compare the head-to-head performance of direct competitor ISPs — providers with significant overlaps in service territories. We analyze how these providers measure up against each other in locations where the choice is relevant to consumers. These overlaps are based on Q1 2024 Opensignal service territories and are refined to the census tract level. Similarly, it is technology-agnostic.
Key findings
- Spectrum has the highest national score for Reliability Experience — 741 points on 100-1000 scale.
- Verizon is the top scoring telecom provider, over 100 points below Spectrum.
- Xfinity and Spectrum win all of their head-to-head matchups, each triumphing over Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.
- Verizon outperforms T-Mobile in locations where their shared service areas.
Reliability Experience
Opensignal’s Broadband Reliability Experience metric measures the entire user experience, from establishing a connection to successfully completing tasks like streaming video, browsing the web, and scrolling through social media. The Opensignal approach towards reliability is more user-centric than network operators’ internal views of reliability. A network operator is likely to consider their network "reliable" if there is zero downtime, but an end-user wouldn't find it reliable if they can't send an email, exchange instant messages, use their device for navigation or watch their favorite Netflix show. Calculated on a scale of 100-1000, with higher scores indicating better Reliability Experience, the metric consists of three main components:
- Connectivity - assessing whether a household can connect to the Internet
- Completion - measuring whether tasks can be completed
- Sufficiency - whether tasks are performed sufficiently well
You can read more about this in the methodology section
National Broadband Reliability Experience
Spectrum wins Reliability Experience at a national level by a wide margin, over 30 points above Xfinity’s 710 points on a 100-1000 point scale. The national leaderboard is topped by cable providers, with third-placed Verizon being the highest scoring telco at 625 points — 100 points ahead of T-Mobile, the lowest scoring telco. T-Mobile’s network consists overwhelmingly of cellular fixed wireless, which scores lower for Reliability Experience. AT&T and Verizon both have extensive fiber footprints, however a significant proportion of AT&T’s subscribers use non-fiber technologies, negatively affecting its overall reliability score.
Head-to-head competitive experience
Despite their extensive coverage, no consumer will have access to all of the broadband providers that we analyzed for the national experience. Opensignal’s head-to-head comparisons address this, comparing providers’ Reliability Experience against their competitors’ in areas where their service territories overlap.
Xfinity has a more reliable broadband experience than all three telco providers in areas where their service territories overlap — as does Spectrum. AT&T outperforms its fellow telecom providers, scoring higher than both T-Mobile and Verizon. Verizon wins against T-Mobile in areas where both are available. While both have a significant number of FWA subscribers, Verizon’s majority of fiber subscribers raises its Reliability Experience score.
Methodology and definitions
Opensignal references consumer-facing brand names in the reports, however, it is important to note that the ownership and operation of broadband infrastructure may be attributed to different corporate entities. We have included a table below that outlines the parent infrastructure companies associated with the consumer-facing broadband provider names.
Plan characteristics — for example, speed tiers or data caps — vary greatly by provider and the dispersion of the plan mix will affect the average experience result. Opensignal’s measurements capture users’ experience, regardless of the plan that they have purchased from their provider. This report analyzes the real-world situation across all users’ plans.
Opensignal also captures user measurements across all broadband network architectures, encompassing fiber (FTTx), xDSL, cable, fixed wireless access (FWA) via 4G and 5G, as well as satellite, and reports on a holistic evaluation of our users’ experience with the listed providers' internet services.
Reliability
Opensignal’s Broadband Reliability Experience metric measures the entire user experience, from establishing a connection to successfully completing tasks like streaming video, browsing the web, and scrolling through social media. It captures the true end-to-end reliability experience by analyzing the two most popular internet protocols - TCP (transmission control protocol) and UDP (user datagram protocol) - for a comprehensive measure of every aspect of households' experience with their ISP’s network. We can assess when things are working flawlessly, when something is erratic, and when there is no connection at all. Calculated on a scale of 100-1000, with higher scores indicating better Reliability Experience, the metric consists of three main components:
- Connectivity: Measuring the household's ability to connect to the internet. While ISPs strive to provide ubiquitous connectivity there are often events that lead to outages, and the connectivity component of the score captures the proportion of times when households don’t have internet access.
- Completion: Completion measures the ability to complete typical tasks. It ensures that the established connection is maintained and there is a consistent flow of information as consumers would expect.
- Sufficiency: Ensures that the task is performed sufficiently well. This component includes speed thresholds, latency thresholds, jitter, and other technical components that are prerequisites for good service and application experiences.
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