Who is the best wireless carrier? OpenSignal and J.D. Power published reports on data metrics and customer service. We’ll take you into those reports and show you who is the current mobile leader.
Availability
Availability is the percentage of time that users have an LTE (4G) connection. If an LTE connection is not available then you fall back to 3G, which is considerably slower.
T-Mobile scored 93.14% and Verizon followed with 92.72%. Next is AT&T with 87.03%. Sprint is last with 85.66%.
Download Speed
Download speed is the average download speed across OpenSignal users. They measured LTE (4G) and 3G separately. T-Mobile dominated this category. The only thing worth mentioning about the other carriers is that Verizon put up a fight with their 4G download speed and AT&T did the same with 3G downloads. Outside of that, nobody was even close.
They also look at the overall download speed. T-Mobile won this with 18.31 Mbps. Verizon is next with 16.49 Mbps. In third is AT&T with 11.86 Mbps. Finally, Sprint averaged 10.24 Mbps.
Latency
Latency is the amount of time it takes for the data to make a round trip on the network. It is easy to picture if you make a video call with someone in the same room. The delay in sound or movement between the two devices is the latency. It makes a difference in video calls or streaming video and is arguably more important than download speed since even the worst average speed listed is enough to stream video. Last, since we’re talking about a delay, a lower number is better.
AT&T won this for 4G with 58.29ms. T-Mobile is very close with 59.74 ms. Sprint finally gets out of the last place with 69.59 ms and Verizon takes it with 69.99 ms.
T-Mobile is back on top for 3G with 109.41 ms. AT&T is next with 133.69. Sprint is in third place with 164.12 ms. Verizon is last with 204.12 ms.
Customer Service
The J.D. Power study ranks mobile carriers in different customer service categories such as phone, online chat, email, social media, etc. The maximum score is 1000.
T-Mobile ranks highest among full-service carriers in customer service with a score of 828. Second and third aren’t too far behind. Verizon, in second, scored 822. AT&T is in third with 811. Sprint brings up the rear with 755.
Interestingly, the highest satisfaction from questions and requests comes from social media channels. T-Mobile’s CEO leads the way with his frequent and entertaining tweets.
Final Thoughts
The data results do vary by region, and we encourage you to look at the OpenSignal report for more details. Nationally, T-Mobile is winning almost every performance metric category when compared to other full-service carriers. T-Mobile also leads the way in customer service. Verizon along with AT&T and Sprint may respond in 2018. Right now, the Un-Carrier is the best wireless carrier.