Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumer mobile experience. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
AT&T wins our third multiplayer mobile gaming experience award in the U.S. after coming behind previous joint winners T-Mobile and Verizon in our past report. AT&T improved its score by 0.4 points to reach 67.2 points (on a 100-point scale), while T-Mobile and Verizon’s scores decreased by 2.3 points and 1.3 points, respectively.
Verizon wins Video Experience by scoring 55.9 points compared with 53 points for T-Mobile and 52.4 points for AT&T. However, both Verizon and T-Mobile saw their scores diminish compared to our previous report, with the end result showing that Verizon’s lead on second-placed T-Mobile has fallen from 3.7 points to 2.9 points. Verizon is still the only U.S. carrier with a Video Experience score rated as Good, as both AT&T and T-Mobile placed in the Fair category.
Our users on T-Mobile experienced the fastest Upload Speed Experience as T-Mobile’s score was 9.3 Mbps compared with Verizon’s 7.9 Mbps and AT&T’s 6.1 Mbps. But T-Mobile was the only carrier to see its Upload Speed Experience decrease in the past six months, meaning its lead on second-placed Verizon reduced from 2.3 Mbps to 1.4 Mbps.
Our users on AT&T enjoyed average speeds of 35.2 Mbps compared with our users' experience of 31.8 Mbps using T-Mobile and 28.7 Mbps using Verizon. However, it was our users on T-Mobile that observed the largest increase of 3 Mbps compared to our previous report, followed by a rise of 2 Mbps on AT&T and a decrease of 0.2 Mbps on Verizon — which now places third after tying for second-place with T-Mobile previously.
We observed little variation among 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 78.8, just ahead of Verizon with 78.0 and AT&T on 77.9. All three operators scored Acceptable ratings, but they are not far off from a Good rating, which requires a score of at least 80 points.
T-Mobile secures a narrow lead in 4G Availability, winning the award with a score of 97.8%, ahead of Verizon’s 97.6% and AT&T’s 97.1%. In our previous report, T-Mobile and Verizon jointly won the award with a score of 97.7%, while AT&T scored 96.3%. But Verizon keeps hold of the 4G Coverage Experience award with a near-perfect score of 9.9 on a 10 point scale, ahead of AT&T on 9.7 and T-Mobile's 9.2.
Despite all three national service providers in the U.S. having launched nationwide 5G services, smartphone users still spend the majority of their time connected to older network technologies, rather than 5G. In our new USA 5G User Experience report, where we delve deeper into seven categories of the 5G mobile experience, we found that our 5G users spent the highest amount of time connected to 5G services on T-Mobile at 36.3%. This means that even 5G users are still spending a significant proportion of their time connected to 4G networks, and that understanding the overall mobile network experience of 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.
Competition for our mobile experience awards in the U.S. remains high. AT&T wins Download Speed Experience, T-Mobile wins Upload Speed Experience and Voice App Experience, while Verizon wins Video Experience and 4G Coverage Experience. On the other hand, the two awards that resulted in a joint win between multiple carriers six months ago — Games Experience and 4G Availability — this time are won outright by AT&T and T-Mobile, respectively.
In this Mobile Network Experience we include the overall experience for all smartphone users, but we also publish supporting metrics for 5G users' experience. The difference is that these 5G users results reflect the overall experience across all mobile technologies — 3G, 4G and 5G — of 5G users alone, while the overall results are the average scores across all smartphone users, whether or not they have 5G.
| Mobile Experience Awards USA | |||
|---|---|---|---|
July 2021,
USA Report
|
A
AT&T
|
T
T-Mobile
|
V
Verizon
|
Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
July 2021,
USA
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
V
Verizon
|
|
Games Experience
|
A
AT&T
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
T
T-Mobile
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
A
AT&T
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
T
T-Mobile
|
|
4G Availability
|
T
T-Mobile
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
V
Verizon
|
This is the sixth 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 55.9 points on a 100-point scale, which is 1.6 points lower than what we observed in our previous report, but still 2.9 points above second-placed T-Mobile. Our users on AT&T and T-Mobile saw lower scores of 52.4 points and 53 points respectively. Verizon’s score earned a Good rating (55-65 points), while AT&T and T-Mobile placed in the Fair (40-55 points) category.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
AT&T
|
T
T-Mobile
|
V
Verizon
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Video Experience – 5G Users
| 57.9 (± 0.22) | 53.6 (± 0.13) | 57.6 (± 0.14) |
| Video Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
A
AT&T
|
58 (± 0.22) |
|
T
T-Mobile
|
54 (± 0.13) |
|
V
Verizon
|
58 (± 0.14) |
AT&T wins the Games Experience award with a score of 67.2 points, ahead of Verizon and T-Mobile that scored 66.9 points and 65.9 points, respectively. AT&T was the only U.S. carrier to improve its Games Experience score since our previous report. Both T-Mobile and Verizon saw their scores decrease by 2.3 points and 1.3 points, respectively, and are now coming behind AT&T after jointly winning the award in the previous report.
All three service providers have room to improve in Games Experience which highlights the importance of growing 5G services because 5G technology is intended to improve real-time experiences such as multiplayer mobile gaming. The current scores place them in the Fair category meaning that the gaming experience was average. While most users felt they had control over the game, they did not always receive immediate feedback on their actions and had times when there was a lack of controllability.
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
AT&T
|
T
T-Mobile
|
V
Verizon
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Games Experience – 5G Users
| 67.5 (± 0.30) | 63.3 (± 0.19) | 70.4 (± 0.19) |
| Games Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
A
AT&T
|
67 (± 0.30) |
|
T
T-Mobile
|
63 (± 0.19) |
|
V
Verizon
|
70 (± 0.19) |
T-Mobile narrowly wins the Voice App Experience award with a score of 78.8 points, followed by Verizon and AT&T at 78 points and 77.9 points, respectively. While in our previous report 1.2 points separated the three carriers, now there is less than one-point difference between first and last place. 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.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
AT&T
|
T
T-Mobile
|
V
Verizon
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Voice App Experience – 5G Users
| 79.0 (± 0.12) | 78.6 (± 0.08) | 79.7 (± 0.07) |
| Voice App Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
A
AT&T
|
79 (± 0.12) |
|
T
T-Mobile
|
79 (± 0.08) |
|
V
Verizon
|
80 (± 0.07) |
AT&T wins the Download Speed Experience award for the fourth time in a row, now reaching 35.2 Mbps — a 2 Mbps improvement compared to our previous report. Our users on T-Mobile observed the largest improvement of 3 Mbps in Download Speed Experience compared to our previous report, which allowed the operator to move past its tie with Verizon and secure a clear second-place at 31.8 Mbps. On the other hand, our users on Verizon observed a 0.2 Mbps decrease in their average download speeds, resulting in a score of 28.7 Mbps.
These results change dramatically when we look at just our 5G users’ overall experience on the three carriers. In this case, our 5G users on T-Mobile on average experienced 67.5 Mbps in download speed which was 25.1 Mbps (59.3%) and 26.7 Mbps (65.5%) faster that what our 5G users experienced on AT&T and Verizon, respectively. Remember, 5G user scores are for those users that have both a 5G smartphone and a 5G service plan, while overall scores are the results for all mobile users.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
AT&T
|
T
T-Mobile
|
V
Verizon
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Download Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 42.4 (± 0.24) | 67.5 (± 0.38) | 40.8 (± 0.19) |
| Download Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
A
AT&T
|
42 (± 0.24) |
|
T
T-Mobile
|
68 (± 0.38) |
|
V
Verizon
|
41 (± 0.19) |
T-Mobile maintains a clear victory in Upload Speed Experience, with our T-Mobile users enjoying a speed of 9.3 Mbps which is 1.4 Mbps (17.1%) faster than our users connecting with second placed Verizon. However, T-Mobile’s lead in this category has narrowed since our previous report, when our users on T-Mobile enjoyed average upload speeds of 9.9 Mbps — 2.3 Mbps (29.4%) faster than with Verizon. In this report, Verizon and AT&T scored 7.9 Mbps and 6.1 Mbps, respectively — which were 0.3-0.4 Mbps faster than in our previous report.
However, when we focus on just our 5G users’ overall upload speeds on the three carriers, we see T-Mobile having a larger lead on its competitors. In fact, our 5G users on T-Mobile on average experienced 12.3 Mbps in upload speed which was 3.3 Mbps (36.3%) and 5.6 Mbps (84.2%) faster that what our 5G users experienced on Verizon and AT&T, respectively.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
A
AT&T
|
T
T-Mobile
|
V
Verizon
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 6.7 (± 0.06) | 12.3 (± 0.08) | 9.0 (± 0.05) |
| Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
A
AT&T
|
7 (± 0.06) |
|
T
T-Mobile
|
12 (± 0.08) |
|
V
Verizon
|
9 (± 0.05) |
T-Mobile edges out Verizon and is the sole winner of the 4G Availability award with a score of 97.8%. T-Mobile had shared the 4G Availability award with Verizon in our previous report when both operators scored 97.7%, after T-Mobile placed second in all our 2019 and 2020 reports. But now T-Mobile has secured a 0.2 percentage point lead over Verizon which scored 97.6%, while AT&T has further reduced the gap it had with its peers, as it scored 97.1% up from 96.3%.
Verizon wins the 4G Coverage Experience award with a near-perfect score of 9.9 on a 10 point scale. AT&T is second with 9.7 points followed by T-Mobile’s score of 9.2 points.
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 30 U.S. states — the same set as in our new USA 5G User Experience report. Across these states AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon won outright 44, 42 and 50 awards each, while AT&T obtained a significantly lower number of shared wins compared to T-Mobile and Verizon. Each of the carriers excelled in different measures of the mobile experience.
Verizon dominated our Video Experience awards as it won all bar four state awards for Video Experience outright, and shared the Victory in the remaining four — Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Verizon achieved Good ratings (55-65 points) in 20 states, and T-Mobile obtained these only in Illinois and New Jersey — while AT&T collected only Fair ratings (40-55).
AT&T excelled in Download Speed Experience as it won outright 23 of the state awards and it shared the award in a further three states. AT&T also showed an edge in Games Experience by winning 14 awards outright compared to five and six outright wins that T-Mobile and Verizon secured in this category.
T-Mobile showed dominance in Upload Speed Experience with 19 outright wins and six states scoring above 10 Mbps, while Verizon passed the 10 Mbps mark in New Jersey alone and AT&T’s highest score was 7.7 Mbps in California. T-Mobile also collected the largest number of awards in the Voice App Experience category.
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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