Last week, a report from Ookla found that T-Mobile’s 5G and 4G LTE networks are nearly twice as fast as Verizon’s and AT&T’s networks. Today, Opensignal published the results of a new study that reveals one of the most significant reasons for T-Mobile’s leadership.
5G services cover a much wider range of frequencies than older mobile technologies, and each has unique advantages and disadvantages. Since the low-band 5G frequencies have significantly greater range than the higher frequencies and generally share the same airwaves as 4G/LTE services, all three operators have used this spectrum to provide their expanded coverage across the country. T-Mobile calls this its 5G Extended Range network, Verizon uses the term 5G Nationwide, and AT&T just calls it 5G.
Verizon
Meanwhile, higher frequencies in the C-band mid-spectrum and extremely high frequency (EHF) millimeter wave (mmWave) offer much better performance in more limited ranges. Therefore, these services are mainly used in built-up urban areas where most users live. These are T-Mobile’s 5G Ultra Capacity, Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband, and AT&T’s 5G Plus (5G+).
In its latest report, Opensignal collectively calls them 5G Enhanced Services, and in an industry first, the mobile analytics company has set out to quantify the user experience of these premium 5G networks.
Similar performance on 5G enhanced services
As we already know, higher frequencies provide a significantly better experience than low-band 5G. This is partly due to the way radio waves work: all other things being equal, lower frequencies are always slower than higher frequencies. However, the problem is even worse in many cases because these frequencies still carry older 4G/LTE traffic, so newer 5G signals must share the airwaves.
What’s significant about Opensignal’s findings is that people connecting to T-Mobile and Verizon’s 5G Enhanced services experienced similar speeds, even though the carriers use different mid-range frequencies. T-Mobile launched its 5G Ultra Capacity network primarily using the 2.5 GHz spectrum it inherited from its merger with Sprint. In contrast, Verizon has developed its mid-band services in the higher-frequency 3.7–3.98 Ghz C-band, which it purchased in early 2021 at a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction.
This may be one reason why Verizon has an edge in three specific areas: mobile multiplayer gaming, over-the-top (OTT) voice services and customizable video experiences. Ookla’s recent market report for the second quarter also confirms this. Verizon’s mmWave deployment is also more expansive than its rivals, but probably not enough to make a significant difference. Verizon’s C-Band rollout in early 2022 expands its 5G Ultra Wideband network to more than 100 million people in 1,700 cities nationwide; before that, the faster network was only available in the centers of around 82 cities.
Opensignal
Since Opensignal was determined to investigate user experience on premium 5G services, it measured average download speeds exclusively on these networks. This reflects the performance you’re more likely to see if your phone displays a 5G UC (T-Mobile), 5G UW (Verizon), or 5G+ (AT&T) icon.
T-Mobile still took the top spot for average 5G download speed of 232.2 Mbps, but only by a hair; Verizon wasn’t far behind at 226.3 Mbps. AT&T is a distant third with an average download speed of 161.1 Mbps — a performance that’s slower than T-Mobile’s overall average 5G download speed of 187.12 Mbps, Ookla recently reported.
The battle for 5G supremacy
This means that the primary battle for performance and coverage is in the midrange. While the carriers are about the same in speed, Opensignal’s analysis shows that T-Mobile still has a solid lead when it comes to 5G coverage — a lead that translates into higher average download speeds.
Nationwide, Opensignal found that T-Mobile customers can connect to its 5G Ultra Capacity network in 41.9 percent of countries. By contrast, Verizon customers only saw a 5G Ultra Wideband network in 11.7 percent of the same counties. AT&T’s numbers were even more disappointing, with its 5G Plus service available in just 1.4 percent of 5G countries.
Opensignal
In other words, if you’re a T-Mobile customer, you’re much more likely to be using the carrier’s best 5G services than if you’re on Verizon or AT&T. This doesn’t mean you won’t get 5G coverage on those other carriers, but it does mean that even if the 5G icon lights up on your phone, you won’t get much faster speeds than you would on a 4G/LTE network.
T-Mobile’s lead wasn’t just in 5G-enhanced services. Opensignal also found that its customers are more likely to find 5G at all. At least one type of 5G was available to T-Mobile customers in 88.1 percent of locations, with AT&T in second place at 69.5 percent and Verizon in last place at 51.9 percent.
Different tactics
While these numbers are still heavily skewed in T-Mobile’s favor, it’s important to remember that the Un-carrier has had a significant lead in its mid-range 5G deployments. While Verizon and AT&T waited for the FCC to free up and auction off some of the C-band spectrum, T-Mobile had already moved forward with Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum in April 2020. That was nearly a year before its competitors even were able to bid for the midrange spectrum almost two years before the introduction of the first C-band at the beginning of 2022.
However, while all three carriers have bought licenses for parts of the new C-band spectrum, they have taken very different approaches. Verizon, which spent $45 billion for its stake, began aggressively rolling out new frequencies as soon as it could. Despite dropping $23 billion in the same auction, AT&T has been far more cautious in its C-band expansion, deploying 5G Plus service in just eight cities, which is why its 5G Enhanced services fared so poorly in Opensignal’s latest analysis.
That doesn’t mean AT&T is standing still. As Opensignal notes, the operator plans to roll out its C-band spectrum later this year as part of a combined deployment that will also take advantage of some new 3.45-3.55GHz spectrum it won in a later auction. That project has already started, but not early enough to show up in Opensignal’s research.
T-Mobile also spent about $9 billion on C-band spectrum, but we likely won’t see a large rollout of C-band on T-Mobile. Instead, it is using the new spectrum to supplement its 2.5GHz 5G Ultra Capacity network, providing a boost in areas that need it.
Despite T-Mobile’s lead, it’s clear that the new C-band spectrum is a game-changer. The question is not if Verizon and AT&T will catch up to T-Mobile, but when. Since all 5G-enhanced services can provide roughly the same performance, coverage will continue to be the determining factor in each operator’s overall 5G performance.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn