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T-Mobile wins the 5G Download Speed award for the third time in a row doubling its lead on the second place from 16.3 Mbps to 35.2 Mbps. Our T-Mobile users saw average 5G Download Speeds of 87.5 Mbps, ahead of our users on AT&T and Verizon which both scored 52.3 Mbps. Our T-Mobile users’ average 5G Download Speed has increased by an impressive 16.3 Mbps compared to our April 5G report, and 29.4 Mbps compared to our January 5G report. By comparison, our users on AT&T saw their average 5G Download Speeds reduce by 2.7 Mbps since our last report, while our users on Verizon experienced a 4.5 Mbps improvement.
AT&T and Verizon now share the award for 5G Video Experience, scoring 61.3 points and 61.2 points, respectively. AT&T claimed the award in April 2021, while Verizon was the sole winner in January 2021. T-Mobile has placed third across all 5G Video Experience awards, this time scoring 54.8 points. Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over carriers’ networks.
T-Mobile dominates in our two measures of the extent of a network by winning both 5G Availability and 5G Reach. Our users on T-Mobile and AT&T saw their 5G Availability and 5G Reach scores increase since our previous report, while we have recorded slight declines in both metrics for Verizon. 5G Availability reflects the proportion of time that 5G users have an active 5G connection, while 5G Reach represents the proportion of locations a 5G user visits that have a 5G signal.
In Opensignal’s measure of multiplayer mobile gaming using 5G, our Verizon users observed an improvement in 5G Games Experience since our previous 5G report, but our users connecting with both AT&T and T-Mobile’s saw a fall in their scores. This helped Verizon edge out AT&T and enabled it to win the 5G Games Experience award outright with a score of 80.9 points and a 5.5 points lead over second-placed AT&T. Verizon and AT&T jointly won the award in April 2021.
Verizon wins the 5G Voice App Experience award scoring 83.3 points and moving past AT&T, which was the previous winner. Verizon has improved its score by 0.7 points since our previous report, while we have observed 0.6-0.8 points declines on both AT&T and T-Mobile. All three mobile operators place in the Good category (80-87 points). Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience real-time communications using over-the-top (OTT) voice apps. Examples of these types of apps include WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger.
T-Mobile wins the 5G Upload Speed award with a score of 15.1 Mbps, which is statistically unchanged compared to our previous report. Verizon places second showing an improvement of 1.2 Mbps and reaching 14.2 Mbps, while AT&T follows behind with 8.8 Mbps — a 1.2 Mbps decline since our April 2021 5G report.
While there are some new 5G winners in this report, overall Opensignal’s awards table has seen few changes since our previous 5G report. T-Mobile maintains a clear edge on our two measures of a network’s extent — 5G Availability and 5G Reach — as well as a firm lead on 5G Download Speed and 5G Upload Speed. On the other hand, we keep seeing a two-horse race between AT&T and Verizon for our three experiential measures — 5G Video Experience, 5G Games Experience and 5G Voice App Experience.
Our T-Mobile users spent more time connected to 5G than we have measured before, reaching 36.3% of the time with 5G service. Also, they are benefitting from the ongoing deployment of T-Mobile’s 2.5 GHz spectrum which pushed up the average 5G Download Speed experienced by 5G users to an impressive 87.5 Mbps — around 35.2 Mbps faster than AT&T and Verizon 5G users. However, our T-Mobile users also observed very slight declines of between 1% and 3% in their average 5G Video, 5G Games and 5G Voice App Experience compared with Opensignal’s previous report.
Our users on AT&T observed improvements in both 5G Availability and 5G Reach, but experienced declines since our April report in the three 5G experiential metrics — 5G Video, 5G Games and 5G Voice App Experience — and also saw reductions to their average 5G download and upload speeds.
Our Verizon users saw their 5G Games Experience and 5G Voice App Experience improve since our last report, along with their average 5G download and upload speeds. However, our users on Verizon experienced 3.1-6.9% declines in 5G Video Experience, 5G Availability and 5G Reach. A mix of factors is likely causing these declines, including more users connecting to 5G, as well as users spending more time outdoors and travelling to more locations during the spring, compared to winter months, where Verizon hasn't rolled out its 5G network yet.
In this latest 5G User Experience report, we analyze the overall 5G experience and combine measurements taken across all 5G frequency bands. Also, we analyzed how the 5G experience varies across 30 leading U.S. states for 5G.
| 5G Mobile Experience Awards USA | |||
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July 2021,
USA Report
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A
AT&T
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T
T-Mobile
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V
Verizon
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5G Availability
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5G Reach
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5G Video Experience
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5G Games Experience
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5G Voice App Experience
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5G Download Speed
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5G Upload Speed
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Mobile Experience Awards Winners
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July 2021,
USA
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|---|---|
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5G Availability
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T
T-Mobile
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5G Reach
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T
T-Mobile
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5G Games Experience
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V
Verizon
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5G Voice App Experience
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V
Verizon
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5G Download Speed
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T
T-Mobile
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5G Upload Speed
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T
T-Mobile
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Mobile Experience Awards Draws
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July 2021, USA
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|---|---|
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5G Video Experience
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A
AT&T
V
Verizon
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Our T-Mobile users were connected to 5G 36.3% of the time, which represented a 3.3 percentage point increase from 33.1% last time. Opensignal's 5G users on AT&T were connected 22.5% of the time to 5G networks — up two percentage points from our April 5G report. Our 5G users on Verizon saw their average 5G Availability decrease from 11.2% last time to 10.5% now.
Opensignal's 5G Availability compares the amount of time 5G users spend connected to 5G — the higher the percentage, the more time users on a network are actually connected to 5G.
T-Mobile wins our second 5G Reach award with a score of 7.1 points on a 10-point scale, which represents an increase of 0.3 points since our April 5G report. AT&T places second with 5.5 points and shows the largest increase of 0.6 points compared to our previous report. Verizon follows at a distance, with a score of three points, having experienced a 0.2 point decline since our previous report.
5G Reach represents the proportion of locations where 5G users have connected to 5G out of all the locations those users have visited, on a scale of 0-10. This measure complements our existing 5G Availability metric which represents the proportion of time 5G users spend connected to 5G.
AT&T and Verizon jointly win the 5G Video Experience award with their respective scores of 61.3 points and 61.2 points. While last time AT&T was the only carrier to see its 5G Video Experience score increase compared to the previous report, this time our users on all three U.S. carriers saw their average experience decline. Our users on AT&T saw the largest decrease of 3.9 points, while Verizon and T-Mobile saw their scores reduce by 2.0 and 1.7 points respectively. AT&T and Verizon placed in the Good category (55-65 points), while T-Mobile missed it by 0.2 points and placed in the Fair category (40-55 points).
Verizon wins the 5G Games Experience award with a score of 80.9 points on a 100-point scale, ahead of AT&T and T-Mobile which scored 75.4 points and 66.5 points, respectively. Our Verizon users were the only ones to see their average score increase since our April report, while our users on both AT&T and T-Mobile experienced slight declines of 3 points and 1.6 points, respectively. This has helped Verizon move past its statistical tie with AT&T from our previous report and secure a 5.5 points lead in this report. Both Verizon and AT&T placed in the Good (75-85 points) category, while T-Mobile placed in the Fair (65-75 points) category having scored 66.5 points.
Opensignal’s 5G Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-100, it analyzes how the multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter to determine the impact on gameplay and the overall multiplayer gaming experience.
Verizon and AT&T have swapped positions in the 5G Voice App Experience award since our April report as Verizon now wins the award with 83.3 points followed by AT&T at 82.4 points, while AT&T previously secured the victory with 83 points and a 0.4 points lead on Verizon. T-Mobile ranks third with a score of 80 points, which represents a 0.8 points reduction since our previous report.
Opensignal's 5G Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger etc. — when users are connected to a 5G network. All three mobile operators scored in the Good category (80-87 points), which means that many users were satisfied although some experienced minor quality impairments — clicking sounds or distortions were very occasionally present.
Our T-Mobile users have seen another impressive improvement in their average 5G download speeds since our last report. T-Mobile’s score increased from 71.3 Mbps to 87.5 Mbps in this latest report, a boost of 16.3 Mbps (22.8%), which is even greater than what we observed in our April 5G report, when T-Mobile’s score increased by 13.2 Mbps (22.6%) compared to January. T-Mobile is reaping the benefits from its ongoing deployment of the 2.5 GHz spectrum it acquired as part of the merger with Sprint, while AT&T and Verizon for now are limited to using lower frequency bands until they’ll be able to deploy the C-band spectrum they acquired in the spectrum auction in February 2021.
On the other hand, our users on AT&T and Verizon saw their average 5G download speeds even out since our previous report, as both operators scored 52.3 Mbps in 5G Download Speed. This represented a 4.5 Mbps improvement for our Verizon users — which last time scored 47.7 Mbps — and a 2.7 Mbps decline for AT&T, which previously scored 54.9 Mbps.
While T-Mobile’s 5G Download Speed score has increased by close to 30 Mbps since our January 5G report, mainly fuelled by the deployment of its mid-band 5G spectrum, AT&T and Verizon scores haven’t changed much. This suggests that we’ll likely need to wait until December 2021, when the first block of C-band spectrum will be released, before our users on AT&T and Verizon can see their 5G Download Speed take a steady upwards path to follow T-Mobile’s.
T-Mobile maintains its hold of our 5G Upload Speed award with a score of 15.1 Mbps, which is statistically unchanged since our April report. Verizon places second in 5G Upload Speed with a score of 14.2 Mbps, which represents a 1.2 Mbps improvement from our previous report, while AT&T’s score declined from 10 Mbps to 8.8 Mbps.
Opensignal has analyzed the 5G experience across 30 leading 5G states to understand how the 5G experience varies across the nation.
T-Mobile dominates Opensignal’s regional 5G awards on both measures of the extent of 5G networks. In fact, T-Mobile wins all of the 5G Availability and 5G Reach awards outright. In 11 states our T-Mobile users spent 40% or more of their time connected to 5G. By contrast, AT&T clocked up 5G Availability scores above 30% in only three states, while Verizon’s highest 5G Availability score was 16.9% — measured in Illinois.
5G Video Experience was a two-horse race between AT&T and Verizon as they share victory in 24 states. Of the remaining six states in our analysis, AT&T wins outright in New York, North Carolina and Ohio, Verizon is the sole winner in Colorado, while AT&T and Verizon share the win with T-Mobile in Alabama and Kansas. This time AT&T and Verizon obtained a single Very Good score (65-75 points) each in New York and Minnesota, respectively, while achieving Good scores (55-65 points) in all other states. T-Mobile collected 19 Good scores and 11 Fair scores (40-55 points).
Verizon wins 21 5G Games Experience regional awards outright, while AT&T is the sole winner in Texas only. T-Mobile has two joint wins in 5G Games Experience with both AT&T and Verizon in New York and New Jersey, while AT&T and Verizon share the win in the remaining six states. Verizon was the only operator to feature any Excellent scores (85 and above) as it collected five in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon and Utah.
Verizon is the sole winner of the 5G Voice App Experience award in 14 states, while AT&T wins outright in Texas only — same as it did in 5G Games Experience. The three national U.S. carriers share the victory in New Jersey and Virginia, while AT&T and Verizon show a statistical tie for first place in the remaining 13 states. While AT&T and Verizon scored Good ratings (80-87 points) in all 30 states, T-Mobile obtained 13 Good ratings and 17 Acceptable ratings (74-80 points).
T-Mobile wins outright on 5G Download Speed in 27 states, while being a joint winner in Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin. The fastest average 5G download speeds observed by our users across states were over 130 Mbps. In fact, our T-Mobile users experienced 138.8 Mbps in New York, 137.4 Mbps in Virginia and 134.7 in Maryland. In an additional 14 states, our T-Mobile users experienced a 5G Download Speed faster than 80 Mbps. AT&T scored above 70 Mbps in Maryland only — 71.3 Mbps — while Verizon’s fastest average 5G download speeds were just below 70 Mbps.
The improvement in 5G Upload Speed we observed on Verizon’s 5G network at the national level spilled over into our regional table. In fact, this time Verizon wins outright 12 state awards for 5G Upload Speed, while T-Mobile is the sole winner in 11 states. T-Mobile and Verizon share the victory in the remaining seven states. However, our T-Mobile users still see the fastest upload speeds that we have recorded on U.S. 5G networks, as T-Mobile is the only operator to exceed 20 Mbps in 5G Upload Speed — 26.8 Mbps in New York and 22.9 Mbps in New Jersey — while Verizon saw its highest score of 19 Mbps in Illinois. By contrast, our users on AT&T saw 5G Upload Speed of 10 Mbps or more in just four states — in the states of California, Illinois, Massachusetts and North Carolina where average scores ranged between 10 Mbps and 10.9 Mbps.
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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