The latest research from network intelligence provider Ookla shows that T-Mobile had the fastest mobile network in the U.S. and that Xfinity edged out several rivals for the top spot among fixed-line carriers in the fourth quarter of 2022, the company announced this week.
Average download speeds for T-Mobile customers, Ookla said, reached over 151 Mbps, a sharp increase from the company’s 116 Mbps mark in the previous quarter, which was already good enough to support T-Mobile to become by far the fastest mobile phone provider.
Verizon and AT&T both posted gains — up from about 58 Mbps in the third quarter to 69 Mbps and 65 Mbps, respectively — but both lagged far behind T-Mobile. Looking at 5G performance, T-Mobile was again the clear leader with an average download speed of 216 Mbps compared to Verizon’s 128 Mbps and AT&T’s 85 Mbps.
However, the big three were more tightly packed in terms of latency. T-Mobile again won this category with an average multi-server latency of 56 ms, but Verizon was close behind with 58 ms, and AT&T reported an average of 60 ms. Even accounting for 5G connections, Verizon won the category last quarter with an average latency of 53 ms compared to T-Mobile’s 54 ms. (AT&T hit the 59ms mark.)
A similar situation prevailed in terms of consistency, which Ookla measures as the percentage of connections that are at least 5 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. T-Mobile again won this category with a score of 86.8%, but Verizon and AT&T were both just behind with 82.4% and 81.1%, respectively.
For fixed broadband, the landscape was more competitive – Spectrum fell from first to second while Xfinity moved up from third to first with a median download speed of 226 Mbps in the final quarter of the year. However, the top three fixed-line broadband providers were tightly clustered, with Spectrum just slightly further behind at 225Mbps, and Cox at 212Mbps.
Upload speeds were a different story, however, as AT&T was way ahead with a median speed of 142 Mbps, followed by Verizon at 104 Mbps. Optimum and Xfinity achieved speeds of 29 Mbps and 20 Mbps, respectively, while Spectrum and Cox lagged behind at 11 Mbps and 10 Mbps, respectively.
In terms of latency, the clear winner was Verizon, which posted an average figure of 15ms, while AT&T was second with 23ms. Optimum, Cox, and Xfinity all got results of 24 or 25 ms, with Spectrum bringing up the rear at 32 ms.
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