T-Mobile was the top performer in eight of nine categories and dominated the city rankings in speed tests conducted by Ookla for U.S. mobile carriers for the fourth quarter of 2022.
Speed testing for fixed broadband services was more of a mixed bag, according to the Speedtest Global Index Market Analysis.
Mobile Performance
In seven of the nine mobile categories T-Mobile was followed by Verizon Wireless and AT&T in that order. The divergent categories were median multi-server latency (in which Verizon Wireless was first and T-Mobile second and AT&T third) and 5G availability (in which T-Mobile was first, AT&T was second and Verizon Wireless placed third).
T-Mobile’s median mobile download speed was tops at 151.37 Mbps. It was followed by Verizon Wireless (69.01 Mbps) and AT&T (65.57 Mbps).
In the median upload speed category, T-Mobile was tops at 12.53 Mbps. Verizon Wireless was next at 9.33 Mbps and AT&T third at 7.98 Mbps.
The consistency category was won by T-Mobile with a score of 86.8%. Verizon Wireless was second at 82.4% and AT&T third at 81.1%.
The 5G performance category also was won by T-Mobile, with a score of 216.56 Mbps. Verizon Wireless was second at 127.95 Mbps and AT&T third at 85.39 Mbps.
T-Mobile was the fastest mobile operator in 45 states and the District of Columbia. AT&T was fastest in two states and the results were too close to call in three states. T-Mobile was the fastest in 86 of the 100 most populous cities in the country. Verizon Wireless was the fastest in one and 13 were too close to call, according to the Ookla mobile speed tests.
Fixed Broadband
Ookla also assessed fixed broadband. Comcast Xfinity had the fastest speed at 226.18 Mbps, a hair faster than Charter Spectrum’s 225.33 Mbps. Cox was third at 212.37 Mbps, followed by Altice Optimum at 190.82 Mbps, AT&T Internet at 187.08 Mbps and Verizon at 183.25 Mbps.
Verizon led the multi-server latency category at 15ms, followed by AT&T Internet at 23 ms, Altice Optimum at 24ms, Cox and Comcast Xfinity at 25ms and Spectrum at 32ms.
Comcast Xfinity led the consistency category (percentage of time providing a minimum of 25 Mbps downloads and 3 Mbps upload) at 91.8%. It was followed by Charter Spectrum at 91.6%, Cox at 90.8%, Altice Optimum at 89.2%, Verizon at 88.4% and AT&T Internet at 83.3%.
The fastest city for median downloads was Jersey City, NJ at 253.28 Mbps. The remainder of the top five were San Antonio, TX (247.75 Mbps), Raleigh, NC (244.69 Mbps), Corpus Christi, TX (244.22 Mbps) and Lincoln, NE (240.18 Mbps).
Last October, Ookla reported that Charter’s Spectrum broadband service had moved ahead of Cox for fastest median download speed in the third quarter. The operator’s median speed was 211.66 Mbps.
What I’d really be interested in, is what the mobile carriers’ data consumption is versus fixed broadband – since the mobile carriers seem to believe that they can compete for the residential customer.
When a person looks at the mobile carrier’s business plan, they only allow so many gigs of data, so the slower the speed, the less chance the consumer has of exceeding their data limits and getting throttled to a say…1.5Mbps speed for exceeding the data limit.
For years, the mobile wireless carriers have taught their customers to hop on their wireline provider’s WiFi network at their home and offloading the data demands to the wireline carrier. Now that the mobile operators want to be the sole provider at the home, they don’t realize the amount of data that a typical home uses versus their typical mobile user.
Off my soapbox.