USA

In Opensignal’s recent State of Mobile Video Experience report, we found that U.S. mobile Video Experience lagged behind all of the G7 economically leading countries and remained in the Fair category. But now we have found that Verizon and Sprint have managed to move into the Good category.

Verizon dominates Video Experience in the U.S., winning it in our July 2019 report and again in our latest analysis. The operator achieved a 58.8 score on a scale of 1-100. Video Experience is determined by factors such as speed, consistency of connections, overall network capacity and network latency. While most operators elect to throttle video traffic, or restrict video resolution, to stop the volume of video traffic damaging the experience of other services, Verizon seems to have struck a good balance with its users enjoying a Good Video Experience, while still seeing solid speeds and latency experiences.

Sprint may not have yet won an Opensignal award but the operator deserves to be recognized for its 16.8% jump in Video Experience from a Fair ranking of 47.5 in the July 2019 report to a Good ranking and a score of 55.5 points just six months later. In August Sprint said it had deployed 32,000 small cells and 3,000 massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) sites to improve its 4G coverage.

The use of voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger is becoming more popular thanks to ubiquitous mobile broadband. These apps offer a new way for users to talk to each other and Opensignal is now measuring the quality of our users’ experience on these apps.

In Opensignal’s inaugural Voice App Experience analysis in the United States, all four nationwide operators scored well within the Acceptable range, meaning that Opensignal users were satisfied with their experience but that some users may experience call quality issues such as clicking sounds or distortion and the volume might not be sufficiently loud.

T-Mobile and AT&T were the leaders in this category and drew for the Opensignal Voice App Experience award. T-Mobile had a score of 79.4 and AT&T had a score of 79.3 on a 100-point scale. That puts them in the Acceptable range but bordering on Good. With a few network improvements we may see T-Mobile and AT&T move into the Good category by our next report.

Verizon and Sprint also scored in the Acceptable range. Verizon had a score of 77.3 on 100-point scale and Sprint had a score of 75.6.

Proving that big changes are possible in six months, AT&T became the winner of Opensignal’s Download Speed Experience award. Our users on AT&T’s network saw their average download speeds increase a dramatic 22.2% from 22.5 Mbps to 27.5 Mbps. We predicted this might happen last July because we had been tracking AT&T’s rapid rise on scores and network technology investment for the past year.

When we separate out AT&T’s 4G Download Speeds from its 3G Download Speeds we see even more dramatic numbers. In 4G alone AT&T clocks in with an average download speed of 29.1 Mbps, which is 10.6% faster than its next competitor, T-Mobile, which holds an average download speed of 26.3 Mbps.

AT&T has been touting its network upgrades that it calls 5G Evolution (5G E), which incorporates technologies such as advanced carrier aggregation and 4x4 MIMO. However, AT&T’s 5G E network improvements should not be confused with the main mobile standards body, 3GPP, standardized 5G New Radio (NR) networks that are in the process of being deployed in the U.S. Instead AT&T’s 5G E, uses LTE Advanced Pro technologies, which the 3GPP, classifies as 4G. In 2019 Opensignal data showed AT&T users with 5G E-capable smartphones did receive a better experience than AT&T users with less capable smartphone models but these speeds were not on the scale promised by 5G.

T-Mobile was the winner in Opensignal’s Upload Speed Experience award with a score of 8.6 Mbps. This is an 17.8% increase since our last report when our users on T-Mobile had an average Upload Speed score of 7.3 Mbps. This jump in upload speeds is creating a bigger distance between T-Mobile and its rival Verizon. Verizon came in second with a score of 7.9 Mbps in average upload speed experienced by our users, which is a 14.5% increase over its 6.9 Mbps score in our July 2019 report.

AT&T, meanwhile, scored 6.0 Mbps in Upload Speed Experience, which is a 22.4% increase over its 4.9 Mbps score in our July 2019 report. If AT&T continues to make such big strides in users’ average upload speeds it could soon rival Verizon and T-Mobile and win the award. But Sprint still has a long way to climb with its score of 2.7 Mbps, which is a 12.5% increase from its score of 2.4 Mbps in our July 2019 report.

AT&T regained its Latency Experience award after sharing the title with T-Mobile in our last report. Our AT&T users scored an average latency of 49.7ms, which is 2.8 points lower than its 52.5ms score in our July 2019 report. And it makes AT&T the first operator to fall below the 50ms latency threshold. T-Mobile came in a close second with a score of 50.4ms. Sprint hit 55ms, which is a 4.8ms improvement from its previous score of 59.8. Verizon is now the operator with the highest average latency score of 56.4, which is only a slight improvement over the 56.8ms experienced by Opensignal users in our July 2019 report.

AT&T also won the most city-level Latency Experience awards of any U.S. operator with 54 first place awards and 23 shared awards. Interestingly, in certain key AT&T markets such as Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas, Texas (home to AT&T’s headquarters), Opensignal users recorded average latency scores in the mid-30ms range, which is considerably faster than the 49.7ms seen nationally. Although Verizon users had the slowest average latency overall, the company did score a few wins in key cities such as Cincinnati, Ohio and Washington, D.C., where Opensignal users clocked speeds in the low-to-mid-40ms range.

Latency will likely play an even bigger role as operators deploy their 5G networks. With 5G the expectation is that networks will have a latency of less than 10ms.

For the first time, all four U.S. operators scored above 90% in the 4G Availability category, which measures the average proportion of time Opensignal users spend with a 4G connection on each operator’s network.

Verizon and T-Mobile, which have been dueling over the 4G Availability award for the past few Opensignal reports, both managed to move over the highly coveted 95% mark. Verizon, however, was victorious with a slight lead over T-Mobile. Verizon scored a 95.9% rating, which is just 0.5% ahead of T-Mobile’s 95.4% score. AT&T meanwhile logged a score of 92.9%, while Sprint came in fourth with 92.5%.

Although U.S. operators are turning their focus to their 5G network deployments, we did see some improvement in 4G Availability, particularly from Sprint. Verizon, in the No. 1 slot, increased its 4G Availability by 1.1 percentage points from its July 2019 score for a score of 95.9%. T-Mobile increased its score by 1.2 percentage points for a score of 95.4%. AT&T and Sprint had even bigger jumps: AT&T increased its 4G Availability by 3.3 percentage points for a score of 92.9% and Sprint increased its 4G Availability by 3 percentage points for a score of 92.5%.

Verizon was the winner in Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience with a score of 9.7 on a scale of 1-10. AT&T came in second with a score of 9.3, followed by T-Mobile with an 8.7 score and Sprint with a score of 8.2. This is the first time Opensignal measured its users’ 4G Coverage Experience in the U.S. A higher coverage score means our users experienced more 4G Coverage in the locations that are most highly trafficked.

Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience metric is a measure of how Opensignal’s mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-10, it analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by Opensignal users of all network operators.