Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumers' connectivity experiences. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding what happens when people use their mobile and broadband connections in their daily life.
Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumers' connectivity experiences. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding what happens when people use their mobile and broadband connections in their daily life.
Once again, T-Mobile wins both overall speed awards outright. It retains Download Speed Experience with a score of 113.1Mbps and Upload Speed Experience with a score of 12.1Mbps. T-Mobile has increased its winning margins over AT&T and Verizon for both metrics compared to the previous U.S. Mobile Network Experience report. Our T-Mobile users enjoy 2.5 times faster average overall download speeds than their AT&T peers and around three times faster than those on Verizon’s network.
Verizon defends all three 5G experiential awards it won in the previous report — 5G Video Experience, 5G Live Video Experience and 5G Games Experience — and wins them again outright. For 5G Live Video Experience, all U.S. national carriers rate as Excellent (58 or above) — our users are, on average, able to stream real-time video at least at 1080p with low loading times, little stalling, and a satisfactory live offset.
Powered with the 2.5GHz spectrum band, T-Mobile triumphs for 5G Download Speed with a score of 204.9Mbps — hitting the 200Mbps milestone for the first time. However, AT&T and Verizon have whittled away at T-Mobile’s lead in 5G Download Speed due to boosts in their scores of 43.5Mbps (54.4%) and 39Mbps (40.5%). These increases are driven by the additional C-band spectrum both AT&T and Verizon gained access to in August 2023. Furthermore, Verizon wins 5G Upload Speed outright for the second time in a row, with a score of 19.9Mbps. It increases its winning margin over T-Mobile to 2.3Mbps — up from 0.3Mbps in the previous report.
Opensignal’s new Coverage Experience metrics measure the geographic coverage of populated areas. Coverage Experience goes to Verizon, which wins the award outright with a score of 9.5 points on a 10-point scale — 0.5 points ahead of AT&T and one point ahead of T-Mobile. Meanwhile, T-Mobile triumphs for 5G Coverage Experience with a score of 7.4 points on a 10-point scale. AT&T comes second, 1.6 points behind the winner, while Verizon takes third place, with a score of 5.4 points.
Availability reflects the proportion of time all Opensignal users on an operator’s network had either a 3G, 4G or 5G connection. AT&T remains the sole winner for Availability, with a score of 99.5% — which is the operator’s only national win. AT&T’s score beats Verizon’s by 0.2 percentage points. T-Mobile comes third with a score of 98.5%, one percentage point behind the winner.
Our U.S. users see the most consistent quality of services on T-Mobile’s network. The operator secures the Consistent Quality award outright for the second time in a row, scoring 80.3% and a lead of 3.7 percentage points over Verizon. AT&T comes third with a score of 75.7%. AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s scores increased by 0.5 and 0.4 percentage points, respectively, while Verizon's score dropped by 0.2 percentage points. Consistent Quality quantifies how often users’ experience on a network is sufficient to support various more demanding common applications used for a range of common tasks. It measures download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, and time to first byte.
In Opensignal's latest U.S. Mobile Network Experience report we introduce new Coverage Experience metrics that measure the extent of overall and 5G coverage in the places our users live, work, and travel. Verizon comes first for Coverage Experience, while T-Mobile wins 5G Coverage Experience outright.
Aside from the newly introduced categories, we do not see any changes in award holders across all overall and 5G categories. All operators retain the awards they won in the previous Mobile Network Experience and 5G Experience reports published in July 2023. T-Mobile leads the award count with nine outright wins out of 15 awards available. It achieves the clean sweep in the overall experience section, commands significant leads for 5G Download Speed and 5G Availability and completes its haul with the Consistent Quality and 5G Coverage Experience awards.
Verizon ends with five awards claimed outright — three experiential 5G awards (5G Video Experience, 5G Live Video Experience, 5G Games Experience), along with 5G Upload Speed and Coverage Experience. AT&T scores the highest for Availability. There are no joint winners for any of the awards this time around.
In August 2023, T-Mobile started rolling out four-carrier aggregation on its 5G standalone (SA) network across multiple spectrum bands — including the 2.5GHz spectrum band, which has been supercharging T-Mobile’s network performance. Opensignal has previously quantified the impact of more 5G spectrum on 5G speed and experiential metrics globally. On top of its existing spectrum holdings, T-Mobile is leasing additional spectrum from Comcast — and potentially buying it on a long-run — for further 5G deployments. However, it is likely to offload its 800MHz band assets to Dish in Q1 2024.
AT&T, UScellular and Verizon also gained full access to their C-band spectrum holdings in August 2023, after satellite companies cleared the band early. We have observed the positive impact of additional spectrum — along with the eased 5G interference mitigations — on AT&T and Verizon’s performance around some of the biggest airports in the U.S. Meanwhile, UScellular intends to switch off its 3G CDMA networks in January 2024 and repurpose the spectrum for 4G services.
In this report we examine the mobile network experience of the three main mobile carriers in the U.S. — AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon — over a period of 90 days starting on September 16, 2023 and ending on December 14, 2023, to see how they fared. In the regional analysis, we also include UScellular (U) in 21 states where it offers cellular services, along with GCI (G) in Alaska.
T-Mobile comes first for Video Experience with a score of 62 points on a 100-point scale. It commands a winning margin of 4.3 points over Verizon, while AT&T took third place with a score of 56.7 points.
T-Mobile rates as Good (58-68), while Verizon and AT&T place in the Fair (48-58) category. A Good (58-68) rating means that our users are, on average, able to stream video at 720p or better with satisfactory loading times and little stalling.
Video Experience scores account for adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), a technology that allows Opensignal to accurately represent users' real video experience including video streams up to 4K quality.
Opensignal’s Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's networks. The metric is based on an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach, built upon detailed studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived video experience as reported by real people. To calculate video experience, we are directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using this ITU approach to quantify the overall video experience for each operator on a scale from 0 to 100. The videos tested include a mixture of resolutions — including Full HD (FHD) and 4K / Ultra HD (UHD) — and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.
In addition to Video Experience, we report on the following metrics related to video experience:
T-Mobile wins the Live Video Experience award outright for the second time in a row with a score of 59.3 points on a 100-point scale. AT&T is the runner-up with a score of 56.4 points, ahead of third-placed Verizon which scores 55.9 points.
T-Mobile is the only operator to place in the Excellent (58 or above) category, while Verizon and AT&T place in the category below — Very Good (53-58). An Excellent (58 or above) rating means that our users are, on average, able to stream video at least at 1080p with low loading times, little stalling and a satisfactory live offset.
Operators’ Live Video Experience scores are determined using a range of measures that impact users’ perceived live streaming viewing experience, including picture quality, video loading time, and stall rate, but also live playback offset — the time difference between real-time and the current playback position a viewer sees.
Unlike Video Experience, which represents on-demand video streams, Live Video Experience quantifies live video streaming used for current events. For example, when users watch live sports, game streams, music concerts, or news where the event is happening at that moment in time.
Opensignal’s Live Video Experience quantifies the quality of real-time video streamed to mobile devices by measuring video streams over an operator's network. The metric extends the existing International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach used for Opensignal's on-demand Video Experience metric, built upon detailed studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including live playback offset, picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived live video experience as reported by real people. To calculate live video experience, we are directly measuring live video streams from end-user devices and using this extension of ITU's approach to quantify the overall live video experience for each operator on a scale from 0 to 100. The videos tested include a mixture of resolutions and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.
T-Mobile stays firm on the top spot for Games Experience with a score of 71 points on a 100-point scale, beating Verizon by 2.5 points. T-Mobile's score has increased by 0.6 points since the previous report, while Verizon's score has decreased by 0.4 points. Meanwhile, AT&T's score remains statistically unchanged.
Our T-Mobile and Verizon users have a Fair (65-75) gaming experience, which means users find the experience to be average and in most cases, the game is responsive to the actions of the player. AT&T places in a category below — Poor (40-65).
Opensignal’s 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 our users’ multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter.
Games Experience quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination). Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.
Calculating Games Experience starts with measuring the end-to-end experience from users’ devices to internet end-points that host real games. The score is then measured on a scale from 0 to 100.
In addition to Games Experience, we report on the following metrics related to games experience:
T-Mobile remains the sole winner of Download Speed Experience, this time with a score of 113.1Mbps. It has increased its winning margins over AT&T and Verizon, as its score has increased by 16.1Mbps, while AT&T's and Verizon’s — by 5.5Mbps and 3.9Mbps, respectively.
As a result, our T-Mobile users enjoy 2.5 times faster average overall download speeds than their AT&T peers and around three times faster than those on Verizon’s network.
Measured in Mbps, Download Speed Experience represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across an operator’s mobile data networks.
In addition to Download Speed Experience, we report on the following metrics related to download speeds:
T-Mobile defends the Upload Speed Experience award with a score of 12.1Mbps — 3.8Mbps (46.5%) ahead of Verizon. AT&T comes third with a score of 6.5Mbps.
T-Mobile has widened its leads for Upload Speed Experience over both competitors as its score has increased by 0.4Mbps. Meanwhile, AT&T's score has improved by 0.1Mbps and Verizon's score remains statistically unchanged from the previous report.
Upload Speed Experience measures the average upload speeds for each operator observed by our users across their mobile data networks. Typically upload speeds are slower than download speeds, as current mobile broadband technologies focus resources on providing the best possible download speed for users consuming content on their devices. As mobile internet trends move away from downloading content to creating content and supporting real-time communications services, upload speeds are becoming more vital and new technologies are emerging that boost upstream capacity.
In addition to Upload Speed Experience, we report on five supporting metrics related to upload speeds:
Opensignal looked at the mobile network experience of our AT&T (A), T-Mobile (T), and Verizon (V) users across 51 U.S. regions — all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We also include results for UScellular (U) across 21 states where the carrier operates. In Alaska, the three active wireless carriers are AT&T, GCI (G), and Verizon — but T-Mobile does not operate there.
T-Mobile wins 196 state awards outright and 42 jointly in the overall experience section. It is the sole winner in more than 40 regions for Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience, and Video Experience. Verizon takes home 11 awards outright and 29 jointly, mostly for Games Experience and Upload Speed Experience. AT&T has only one outright state win — for Live Video Experience in North Carolina — and shares the winners’ podium 19 times, mainly for Live Video Experience as well. GCI wins two awards outright and one jointly in Alaska and UScellular ends with three shared victories.
T-Mobile wins Download Speed Experience outright in 49 out of 50 regions and only shares a single top spot with AT&T in Vermont — which was AT&T’s sole victory in the previous report. GCI comes first in Alaska, where T-Mobile does not have its operations. Our T-Mobile users enjoy the fastest overall download speeds in the U.S. in the District of Columbia — 160.6Mbps. T-Mobile hits the 100Mbps milestone in 35 regions. Meanwhile, our Verizon users see the fastest average download speeds in North Dakota (64.8Mbps) and those on AT&T’s network — in Illinois (63.9Mbps).
T-Mobile smashes the Upload Speed Experience awards table, as it comes first outright in 44 regions and shares three joint wins with Verizon. Verizon retains its leadership in three states — Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, while GCI remains the sole winner in Alaska. Our T-Mobile users see the fastest upload speeds in the U.S. in the District of Columbia, clocking in at 20.4Mbps.
Turning to two overall video metrics — Video Experience and Live Video Experience, T-Mobile wins state awards in 43 regions outright and in seven jointly for Video Experience — and in 27 regions outright and 20 jointly for Live Video Experience. No other operator sees any outright wins for Video Experience, but for Live Video Experience, AT&T is the sole winner in North Carolina, while Verizon — in Alaska. AT&T shares the winners’ podium in two regions for Video Experience and in 16 regions for Live Video Experience, while Verizon — in six and nine, respectively. UScellular is a joint winner for Video Experience in Maine and South Carolina — and for Live Video Experience in Wisconsin. GCI shares the winners’ podium with Verizon in Alaska for Video Experience. In this report. we do not report scores for Indiana and South Carolina for Live Video Experience.
It is a two-horse race for the regional Games Experience awards — T-Mobile wins outright in 33 regions, while Verizon is the sole winner in seven. Both operators share the winners’ podiums in the remaining 11 regions — which means no wins for AT&T, GCI or UScellular, either outright or joint. The outright award haul has shifted in T-Mobile’s favor compared to the latest report, as previously T-Mobile won 18 awards outright in this category, while Verizon solely took 16 awards home.