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T-Mobile wins the 5G Download Speed award for the fifth time in a row, increasing once again its lead on Verizon and AT&T. While in the previous 5G Experience report T-Mobile led by an impressive 62.7 Mbps, this time T-Mobile places at least 93.9 Mbps ahead of its competitors, with our users enjoying a 5G Download Speed that’s 2.7-3.1 times as fast as Verizon and AT&T’s scores. In fact, our T-Mobile users saw average 5G download speeds of 150 Mbps, ahead of our users on Verizon and AT&T which scored 56.2 Mbps and 49.1 Mbps, respectively.
T-Mobile remains firmly in first place in the two measures of 5G’s extent — 5G Availability and 5G Reach. Our T-Mobile users spent 35.4% of the time with an active 5G connection compared with 16.5% for AT&T users and 9.5% on Verizon. Similarly, T-Mobile wins 5G Reach with a score of 7.4 on a 10 point scale, over two points ahead of its nearest rival. 5G Reach represents the proportion of locations a 5G user visits that have a 5G signal.
T-Mobile wins the 5G Upload Speed award for the fifth time in a row with a score of 17.9 Mbps, which shows a 1.8 Mbps improvement compared to our previous report. Verizon places second at 14.1 Mbps after scoring 14.4 Mbps last time, while AT&T follows behind with 9.9 Mbps — a 0.3 Mbps increase since our October 2021 5G report. This means that T-Mobile’s lead on Verizon increased from 1.7 Mbps last time to 3.8 Mbps now.
Verizon keeps ahead in 5G Games Experience with a score of 79.9 points, ahead of AT&T and T-Mobile which scored 72.7 and 72.4 points, respectively. Verizon remains the only U.S. carrier to place in the Good category (75-85). Our users on T-Mobile observed the largest increase of 5.3 points in 5G Games Experience compared to the previous 5G Experience report, meaning that T-Mobile went from lagging behind in third place to joining AT&T with statistically tied scores in second place.
All three mobile operators placed in the Good category (80-87 points) for 5G Voice App Experience as T-Mobile saw its score increase once again past the 80-point threshold after dropping below it to 79.8 points in the previous report. Verizon wins the 5G Voice App Experience award scoring 82.2 points, while AT&T is now tied in second place with T-Mobile as the two operators have statistically tied scores of 80.7 and 80.6 points, respectively.
In this report, we have recorded many changes in the 5G experience of our U.S. users, but not all are upward. This time, T-Mobile is the only carrier seeing its experience improve across all six categories of the mobile experience we analyzed. However, we have a very familiar set of winners in each 5G award category compared with the last 5G Experience report: Verizon remains the sole winner of the experiential measures — 5G Games Experience and 5G Voice App Experience — while T-Mobile dominates in both the speed metrics and in the two measures of a network’s extent — 5G Availability and 5G Reach.
T-Mobile reported it hit its 2021 goal of covering 200 million people with what it calls its “Ultra Capacity 5G” service which relies on the 2.5GHz band. AT&T and Verizon have little similar mid-band 5G spectrum able to support their users’ experience because they have seen C-band 5G launches delayed. AT&T and Verizon originally planned to activate their C-band spectrum holdings on December 5, 2021, but have since twice postponed their launches into early 2022 due to concerns raised by the aviation industry that 5G operations in C-band spectrum could interfere with some radio altimeters used for landing aircrafts. Regardless, C-band 5G services now arrive in the U.S. after the data collection period used for this report.
U.S. carriers have also now acquired additional spectrum in the 3.45-3.55 GHz range at FCC’s Auction 110 which concluded its initial phase in November 2021 and has now gone through the final phase. This provides wireless carriers with additional spectrum that could help them boost their users’ experience in the coming years.
In this latest 5G Experience report we analyze the experience of our users when they were connected to 5G, combining the measurements taken across all 5G frequency bands. For this report we have paused the 5G Video Experience award while we refine the category to better reflect the impact of 5G and carriers’ 5G plans on mobile video streaming. Also, we analyze how the 5G experience varies across 43 U.S. states, as well as in the capital, Washington, D.C.
| 5G Mobile Experience Awards USA | |||
|---|---|---|---|
January 2022,
USA Report
|
A
AT&T
|
T
T-Mobile
|
V
Verizon
|
5G Availability
| |||
5G Reach
| |||
5G Games Experience
| |||
5G Voice App Experience
| |||
5G Download Speed
| |||
5G Upload Speed
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
January 2022,
USA
|
|---|---|
|
5G Availability
|
T
T-Mobile
|
|
5G Reach
|
T
T-Mobile
|
|
5G Games Experience
|
V
Verizon
|
|
5G Voice App Experience
|
V
Verizon
|
|
5G Download Speed
|
T
T-Mobile
|
|
5G Upload Speed
|
T
T-Mobile
|
Our T-Mobile users spent more than double the amount of time connected to 5G than we have measured on second-placed AT&T, reaching 35.4% of the time with 5G service. Our 5G users on AT&T were connected 16.5% of the time to 5G networks, while our Verizon users spent 9.5% of the time with 5G service.
Opensignal's 5G Availability compares the amount of time 5G users spent with an active 5G connection — the higher the percentage, the more time that users on a network were actually connected to 5G.
T-Mobile wins its fourth 5G Reach award in a row, this time with a score of 7.4 points on a 10-point scale — which represents an increase of 0.2 points since the October 5G Experience report. AT&T places second with 5.2 points — a 0.3 increase compared to October. Verizon follows at a distance, with a score of 3.7 points — a 0.2 points increase compared to 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 spent connected to 5G.
Verizon wins the 5G Games Experience award with a score of 79.9 points on a 100-point scale, ahead of AT&T and T-Mobile which share second place with statistically tied scores of 72.7 points and 72.4 points, respectively. Verizon again placed in the Good category (75-85), while T-Mobile and AT&T placed in the Fair category (65-75).
Opensignal’s 5G Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s 5G 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.
Verizon wins the 5G Voice App Experience award once again and placed in the Good category (80-87) together with AT&T and T-Mobile, as they all scored above 80 points. Verizon leads with 82.2 points, ahead of AT&T and T-Mobile’s statistically tied scores of 80.7 and 80.6 points, respectively.
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.
T-Mobile’s 5G Download Speed continues on its upward trend as our users on the carrier now clock average speeds of 150 Mbps, up from 118.7 Mbps in the previous report. A year ago, using T-Mobile our users saw a 5G Download Speed score of 58.1 Mbps, but it has consistently increased since then due to T-Mobile’s ongoing deployment of 2.5 GHz spectrum. The carrier has been increasing both its population coverage, as well as the amount of spectrum deployed on that band.
On the other hand, our users on Verizon saw no statistical change since the previous report in their average 5G download speeds of 56.2 Mbps, while AT&T users saw a 2.4 Mbps decline that brought it down below the 50 Mbps threshold at 49.1 Mbps. Interestingly, Verizon and AT&T shared second place in this category in our July 2021 5G report as they both scored 52.3 Mbps, but their scores have since moved in opposite directions, with Verizon’s increasing and AT&T’s decreasing.
T-Mobile keeps hold of the 5G Upload Speed award with a score of 17.9 Mbps, which is 1.8 Mbps faster than what our users observed in our October report. Verizon places second in 5G Upload Speed with a score of 14.1 Mbps, which represents a 0.3 Mbps decrease from our previous report, while AT&T’s score increased from 9.7 Mbps to 9.9 Mbps.
Opensignal has analyzed the 5G experience across 43 U.S. states, as well as the capital Washington, D.C., 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 regional 5G Availability awards outright, as well as 40 of the 44 5G Reach awards. T-Mobile shares 5G Reach with AT&T in Arkansas, California, Louisiana and Massachusetts. We observed the highest 5G Availability on T-Mobile in the capital D.C. where our users spent 46% of their time with an active 5G connection. Besides, our T-Mobile users in D.C. and Illinois experienced the highest scores in 5G Reach, which means they were able to connect to 5G in the largest share of locations they visited.
Verizon wins 31 5G Games Experience regional awards outright, while sharing the award in a further 10 regions. Verizon achieved the largest number of Good (75-85) scores in 5G Games Experience (37) compared with 22 for AT&T and 13 for T-Mobile. No operator scored in the Excellent 5G Games Experience category (85 or above). Verizon also collects 40 regional awards in 5G Voice App Experience, half of which are sole victories. However, all of Verizon’s 5G Voice App Experience scores were in the Good category (80-87) compared to 40 for AT&T and 39 for T-Mobile, which recorded four and five Acceptable (74-80) scores, respectively.
T-Mobile dominates the regional 5G Download Speed award table as it wins outright in 42 out of 44 regions analyzed, while sharing the award with Verizon in Maine and with both AT&T and Verizon in South Dakota. T-Mobile exceeded the 200 Mbps threshold in the District of Columbia where it hit 235.2 Mbps; our Verizon users in the capital experienced 180.4 Mbps, while our users on AT&T recorded their fastest 5G Download Speed score of 73.7 Mbps in Delaware. T-Mobile also wins 25 regional 5G Upload Speed awards outright while sharing a further 11 with Verizon — which is the sole winner in the remaining eight awards.
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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