Two tiers very evident in US telco rankings

OpenSignal has released some more granular insight on the performance of the top four telcos in the US and it is very clear there are two tiers; Verizon and T-Mobile US are best-in-breed, AT&T and Sprint are not.

When the firm released its State of Mobile Networks in the US report T-Mobile US was recognised as the leader for pretty much everything, but when you look deeper into the statistics in the individual regions, the competition is a lot closer than top-line figures would suggest. Verizon beats T-Mobile US in some areas, is level in others and not far off the pace in the rest.

While the leader in the race is a lot closer than perhaps it might have been initially presented, what is clear is that AT&T and Sprint are not in the same league. The tables below demonstrate this point quite effectively.

On the availability side of things, the distinction between first and second tier is very clear. What should be noted is that the last 12 months have seen a great level of improvement from Sprint and the team has said it will continue investments to improve this coverage. Perhaps it will close the gap over the next year, but that is not a promise it will be able to compete on the speeds front.

Interestingly enough, while the US is one of the best in the world for 4G coverage, it doesn’t compete on the global stage when it comes to download speeds. Again, we can see there are two tiers in the operator rankings when it comes to speed with T-Mobile establishing a bit more of a buffer over Verizon in the top tier, but the overall average falls below the 16.9 Mbps global average. Admittedly, many of the countries above the US are smaller and do not face the same challenges when it comes to geographical variety, but this is a pretty poor performance from a country which claims to be at the front of the digital revolution.

A couple of weeks back we noted the companies who are performing best in their individual markets are the ones which are investing in their networks and not getting distracted by other more colourful ventures. This is another story which adds credibility to the theory. With 5G just around the corner, we would hope AT&T doesn’t get drawn into a long and bitter legal battle with the Department of Justice over its acquisition of Time Warner as that could spell disaster for its standing in the 5G world.

UPDATE: 16.03.2018 – 16.30 – A Sprint spokesperson supplied the following statement in response to the article

This year we’re dramatically increasing our network investment. We have an aggressive plan to improve coverage, reliability and speed across our nationwide network and launch the first 5G mobile network in the U.S in the first half of 2019. Our Next-Gen Network build will give Sprint customers a significantly better network experience in markets all across the country. It includes upgrading cell sites to triband service using 800 MHz, 1.9 GHz, and 2.5 GHz, adding thousands of new cell sites to expand coverage, and densifying the network with more small cells to increase capacity and speed.