RootMetrics has released its report on the performance of the big four US carriers in the second half of 2016, and unfortunately for T-Mobile, the ranks are similar to the report from the first half of 2016.
In RootMetrics’ report, Verizon finished first place with an overall score of 93.9, AT&T finished second with 90.5, Sprint finished third with 84.7, and T-Mobile finished fourth with a score of 81.2.
RootMetrics notes that T-Mobile’s rankings in its six categories — Overall, Reliability, Speed, Data, Call, and Text — have remained the same since the first half of 2015. Looking at those six categories, RootMetrics says that T-Mo finished fourth in texting, fourth in calling, third in data, third in speed, fourth in reliability, and fourth overall.
While T-Mobile didn’t win any overall state victories, it did win a state award for speed and shared three more while also sharing a few awards for data, call, and text performance. Out of 125 metro areas, T-Mobile won two outright and shared another 23 awards, also performing well when focusing on data performance and speeds in metro areas.
In its report, RootMetrics said that while Verizon won out in its results, competition could heat up in the future as AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile “continue to expand their LTE footprints beyond metropolitan markets.” The report added that “T-Mobile has implemented many technological advances, all of which could help the carrier’s metro, state, and national results improve in 2017 and beyond.”
RootMetrics report is based on 3,690,123 tests conducted while driving 249,935 miles, as well as 4,283 indoor tests.
T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray recently penned a blog post that, while not outright naming RootMetrics, is very likely targeted at this new report. In it, Ray says that crowd-sourced reports like those from OpenSignal and Speedtest.net are best because they use data “from real people on their real devices” and that they measure “real usage”.
Ray also says that crowd-sourced reports are better at measuring network performance because they test “where people really go,” whereas “the tests Verizon touts are mostly done on roads.”
To check out the full RootMetrics report, as well as Neville Ray’s blog post, hit up the links below.
Sources: RootMetrics (1), (2), (3), T-Mobile