T-Mobile is the carrier to go to for the fastest 5G speeds. A cross-country study of cellular data by PCMag found that AT&T and Verizon couldn’t match their rival’s average download speed. Not even close.
Lots of people bought an iPhone 12 for the 5G. And T-Mobile the carrier that lets users get the most benefit from it.
T-Mobile is tops in 5G speeds
A graph from PCMag’s Sasha Segan shows that T-Mobile once perpetually languished in third place but has now leapt ahead of the competition.
I mean, this chart https://t.co/upF0ZLrZLU pic.twitter.com/Hi63QLg013
— Sascha Segan (@saschasegan) August 24, 2021
The results came from tests done in 30 cities and 6 rural regions. “T-Mobile took a commanding lead in 5G, winning 24 cities and rural regions to AT&T’s eight and Verizon’s two,” wrote Segan.
Across the entire series of tests — which involved driving 10,626 miles — T-Mobile’s average download speed was 162 Mbps. AT&T’s average was 98 Mbps and Verizon’s was 94 Mbps.
Note that this doesn’t carry over to 4G. T-Mobile still trails its competition in LTE.
5G is finally winning
The chief advantage of 5G is an increase in speed. But a few years ago when carriers were first rolling out their 5G networks it wasn’t unusual for 4G connections to be faster. That’s changed, with the study finding that T-Mobile’s and Verizon’s 5G networks are consistently the better options.
The exception is AT&T. PCMag’s real-world tests found many areas where this carrier’s 4G network is still faster on average than its 5G one.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh SE/30 (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer.
That’s because he’s a “tablet first” type of guy. Rather than use a Macbook, he connects a keyboard case to the iPad. And instead of a desktop Mac, he connects his tablet to a 27-inch display and full-size keyboard. (So don’t try to tell him that everyone has to use a Mac to be productive.)
Before coming to Cult of Mac, Ed wrote for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
