T-Mobile has made a big deal of its low-band 600MHz 5G network and how large it is, with T-Mo calling it a “nationwide 5G network” when it went live late last year. Now a new report has confirmed that T-Mobile customers spend more time on 5G than those on other major operators.
Opensignal published a report today that examines the 5G experience across 10 major carriers around the world. When examining how often 5G smartphone owners are actually connected to a 5G network, T-Mobile came in first place with its customers on a 5G signal 19.8% of the time.
To compare, South Korean carrier SK Telecom finished in second place with 15.4%, Sprint was in fifth place with 10.3%, and AT&T was in sixth place with 9.7%. Verizon brought up the rear in 10th place, with its 5G smartphone owners connected to a 5G signal just 0.5% of the time.
Opensignal also compared the 5G speeds of these 10 top 5G carriers, and here T-Mobile and Verizon swapped places. Verizon finished with by far the fastest 5G speeds, coming in at 506.1Mbps. In second place was LG U+ in South Korea with 238.7Mbps.
Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile finished in spots 8, 9, and 10, respectively. Sprint posted a 5G speed of 114.2Mbps, AT&T’s was 62.7Mbps, and T-Mobile put up a 5G speed of 47.0Mbps.
T-Mobile’s 5G network is largely made up of low-band 600MHz spectrum, which is good at reaching long distances and penetrating buildings but isn’t much faster than 4G LTE. That helps to explain why T-Mo came in first place with 5G availability but last in 5G speeds in this report. Meanwhile, Verizon is using mmWave for its 5G, which has limited reach but offers super-fast speeds.
As we saw earlier today, though, T-Mobile’s 5G network speeds should grow as the carrier continues to integrate the 2.5GHz spectrum that it got from its merger with Sprint.
You can check out Opensignal’s full report at the link below.
Source: Opensignal