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In only Opensignal's second multiplayer mobile gaming experience award in the U.S., Verizon closes the gap with previous winner T-Mobile. Now, just 0.1 points on our one hundred point scale separates the gaming experience on each carrier with T-Mobile scoring 68.2 and Verizon 68.1, which is a statistical tie.
We see Verizon winning Video Experience by an increased margin. Verizon scored 57.5 compared with 53.8 for T-Mobile and 52.1 for AT&T. Last time, Verizon narrowly won the Video Experience award with a score of 57.3 on our one hundred point scale with Sprint in second place on 55.4 before T-Mobile retired the Sprint brand following the company's merger. Verizon is the only carrier with a Video Experience score rated as Good, both AT&T and T-Mobile's scores place them in the Fair category.
Our users on T-Mobile saw upload speeds 29% faster than their counterparts on second-placed Verizon, and a staggering 74% faster than our AT&T users. While the absolute speed differences may seem modest — ranging from T-Mobile's Upload Speed score of 9.9 Mbps to AT&T's 5.7 Mbps — the percentage differences highlight how much time users may be able to save when uploading files, photos, or videos.
As our users on AT&T enjoyed average speeds of 33.2 Mbps compared with our users' experience of 28.9 Mbps using Verizon and 28.8 Mbps using T-Mobile, the gap between the winning operator and its closest rivals has narrowed very slightly since our last report although the winner remains the same, AT&T. Then, AT&T scored 32.6 Mbps, ahead of T-Mobile on 28.2 Mbps.
There is little to choose between the three carriers for Opensignal's measure of voice communications using over-the-top apps like Facetime or WhatsApp. T-Mobile wins the award with a score of 79.5 meaning the experience is Acceptable, just ahead of Verizon with 78.8 and AT&T on 78.3. However, all three operators are not far off from a Good rating, which requires a score of at least 80 points.
On our two measures of the extent of a 4G network — still the mainstay of U.S. mobile users experience — our Verizon users see very high scores. On the time connected to 4G, or 4G Availability, Verizon jointly wins the award with a score of 97.7% alongside T-Mobile. But on 4G Coverage Experience, Verizon scores 9.8 on a ten point scale, ahead of AT&T on 9.6 and T-Mobile's 9.1.
All three national service providers in the U.S. have launched nationwide 5G services, but most users continue to own older smartphone models and to connect to older network technologies. How the overall mobile network user experience of all U.S. mobile users remains an important measure on which to compare the three carriers. 5G readings contribute to all our results and awards in this report. We delve deeper into 5G in our new USA 5G User Experience report.
Since our last USA Mobile Experience report in July, T-Mobile has retired the use of the Sprint brand following the completion of the merger between the two carriers. As a result, we no longer separately report on the experience of our Sprint mobile users.
The challenges from the ongoing pandemic have continued to affect the lives of Americans. But U.S. mobile networks have proved resilient and all three carriers have offered a high quality mobile network experience across the full range of measures.
We see signs of the fierce competition between AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon in the award categories this time. Verizon has caught up with T-Mobile on Games Experience, but has extended its lead on mobile Video Experience. The Games Experience situation is reversed on 4G Availability between Verizon and T-Mobile, with T-Mobile here closing on Verizon. And yet, we see a completely different result on Download Speed Experience with our AT&T users enjoying the fastest speeds.
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January 2021,
USA Report
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V
Verizon
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T
T-Mobile
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A
AT&T
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Video Experience
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Games Experience
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Voice App Experience
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Download Speed Experience
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Upload Speed Experience
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4G Availability
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4G Coverage Experience
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Mobile Experience Awards Winners
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January 2021,
USA
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Video Experience
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V
Verizon
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Voice App Experience
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T
T-Mobile
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Download Speed Experience
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A
AT&T
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Upload Speed Experience
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T
T-Mobile
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4G Coverage Experience
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V
Verizon
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Mobile Experience Awards Draws
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January 2021, USA
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Games Experience
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V
Verizon
T
T-Mobile
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4G Availability
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V
Verizon
T
T-Mobile
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This is the fifth report in a row that Verizon has won our Video Experience category. No other carrier has ever won Opensignal's U.S. mobile Video Experience award. Verizon's score this time is 57.5 on a 0-100 scale, which gives it a Good rating (55 - 65) meaning our users on its network had an experience that was less consistent, had some noticeably slower loading times with some stalling, than users who had a Very Good or Excellent experience.
Our users on AT&T and T-Mobile saw a lower Video Experience, with scores of 52.1 and 53.8 respectively. Both carriers' scores place them in the Fair category meaning the experience is not good for high resolution video where users will likely see increased times before videos start playing and have time with playback more stalling. However, the experience may be sufficient on lower resolutions.
T-Mobile and Verizon had near identical mobile Games Experience scores — 68.2 and 68.1 respectively — this is a change from our last report when T-Mobile had a clear lead and won the award outright. Now, Verizon has narrowed the gap sufficiently so the result is now a statistical tie with confidence intervals that overlap. However, AT&T is only slightly behind the gaming leaders with a score of 66.8.
All three service providers have room to improve. The current scores place them in the Fair category meaning that the gaming experience is average. While most users will feel they have control over the game, they will not always receive immediate feedback on their actions and have times when there is a lack of controllability.
It was a close result for Voice App Experience this time. T-Mobile narrowly wins the award with a score of 79.5, with a lead that has nearly halved from 1.3 points to 0.7, ahead of Verizon on 78.8 and AT&T on 78.3. Opensignal's Voice App Experience reflects the use of over-the-top (OTT) voice communication apps, for example Facebook Messenger, Skype or WhatsApp. The model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality using a model derived on the International Telecommunications Union approach.
For the third report in a row, AT&T wins the Download Speed Experience award with our AT&T users observing overall average download speeds of 33.2 Mbps. Both T-Mobile and Verizon are neck and neck, with users' speeds of 28.8 Mbps and 28.9 Mbps respectively, but our AT&T users experienced download speeds that were 15% faster than those seen by our users on the two chasing carriers.
There's a clear winner in Upload Speed Experience, with our T-Mobile users enjoying a speed of 9.9 Mbps which is 29% faster than our users connecting with second placed Verizon. Upload speed is important for sharing photos or video, uploading office files, sending email attachments or connecting to offices remotely using virtual private networks (VPNs).
The gap between T-Mobile's score and those of Verizon and AT&T has narrowed since our last report. Since then, our Verizon users have seen their speed increase fractionally by 0.1 Mbps, AT&T users have seen a similar 0.1 Mbps change, but a reduction, while our T-Mobile users have seen a fall of 0.5 Mbps reducing the Upload Speed Experience difference across the three carriers.
T-Mobile now jointly wins the 4G Availability award with Verizon, having removed the small gap its users saw last time. In our July 2020 report, Verizon had a 4G Availability of 97.4% and T-Mobile 97.0 Mbps, but now the scores on both are tied at 97.7%.
4G Availability measures the time users are able to connect to 4G networks. The higher the score, the less time users will have spent connected to older, less capable, mobile network technologies or have no signal. Even with the arrival of 5G, 4G Availability continues to be important because most 5G connections are non-standalone access (NSA) which means they require the presence of a 4G connection in order for a smartphone to also connect to 5G. Only standalone access (SA) lacks this requirement but among the U.S. carriers only T-Mobile has deployed SA and even then T-Mobile continues to offer NSA 5G service in many locations and for older 5G devices.
Verizon wins the 4G Coverage Experience award with a score of 9.8 on a 10 point scale. AT&T is second with 9.6 followed by T-Mobile's score of 9.1. While T-Mobile is again third, it's noticeable that its 4G Coverage score has increased from 8.8 to 9.1 in just the six months since our last report.
4G Coverage Experience measures the mobile coverage experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users — i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel. It considers all the areas that Opensignal users visit, the portion of locations that 4G is available to them, and locations that more users visit have higher importance to them.
We have analyzed the mobile network experience across 20 U.S. states — the same set as in our new USA 5G User Experience report. Across these states T-Mobile and Verizon won more awards than AT&T but we saw significant differences across each award category as well as across the U.S. itself.
Verizon won all bar two state awards for Video Experience outright, and in the outliers, Alabama and Georgia, it jointly won the award with T-Mobile. In both Video Experience and Upload Speed Experience, AT&T took no wins or joints wins.
The bulk of Download Speed Experience awards at a state level went to AT&T, matching its national win. In twelve states AT&T won outright, and it shared the award in a further two states. But Verizon secured wins in Louisiana and its home turf of New Jersey while T-Mobile also beat the national trend with wins in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Texas — all of which are states that are a long way from its Seattle HQ.
Aptly, for multiplayer Games Experience we saw a fierce competition with all three carriers picking up significant wins. AT&T won three states outright, T-Mobile four and Verizon seven. In fact, of all our mobile network experience categories we saw the most even distribution of state awards for Games Experience with every carrier securing at least 35% of the awards — either winning or jointly winning — on offer.
Overall the spoils were shared at state level with Verizon picking up 66 wins or joint wins, T-Mobile 55 and AT&T 26.
Select any region or city below to display individual breakdown
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
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