The Fastest Mobile Networks 2010
We tested 3G and 4G connections in 18 cities to find the fastest mobile network. Which one came out on top?
It's a boom time for 3G. Where Americans were once happy with hotspots, now they're demanding to be connected anywhere—whether it's with their , , or . And 3G is beginning to turn into 4G, as wireless carriers start to install faster technologies that can match or beat many .
There's more mobile data competition than ever before, and more people are surfing the Internet on the move. So PCMag.com decided to take a snapshot of America's mobile networks and see who's doing the best in 18 cities. Using more than a dozen staffers and freelancers with software of our own design, we cruised streets from to checking AT&T, Cricket, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Sprint 3G, and Sprint 4G against each other.
In testing 3G and 4G across the continental USA, we wanted to do things differently from the competition, with more cities and more control—blanketing as many places as we could with tests of our own design.
We didn't test voice quality, dropped calls, or coverage areas; while those are very important measurements, these tests were all about mobile Internet. We ran approximately 1,000 rounds of tests (totaling more than 10,000 individual tests) in 20 cities. We had to throw out two cities, Las Vegas and Philadelphia, because of technical problems, but overall our testing produced consistent, repeatable results. Two of our networks, Sprint 4G and Cricket, weren't available in all the cities we tested. That made them ineligible for regional and national awards, though we rated them for the individual cities they served.
Bear in mind mobile networks are constantly changing, and almost always for the better. And because speeds vary based on tower location, network load, device used, and even the weather, we can't predict performance in a specific location; rather, we're giving a snapshot of a specific day's usage in several locations across a metro area.
As we were editing this article, T-Mobile rolled out their new, in more of the Northeast, Memphis and Las Vegas. Sprint promises more and better 4G WiMAX coverage over the next few months, too. But for now, the speed crown goes to AT&T.
AwardsNational: AT&T |
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Northeast: T-Mobile |
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Southeast: AT&T |
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Central: AT&T |
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West: AT&T |
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Making a Date With Data
We used laptops, not phones, to test the carriers' data networks. (For more on this, see .) That meant giving up on some measures like dropped calls and voice quality. Why focus on data? Here at PCMag.com, we've always seen smartphones as the next evolution of the PC. Our readers are most interested in data-heavy devices like the , , and . They want to surf, watch, and play on the road—and all of those things require a solid mobile data network.
Data is also where the growth is. According to an April 2010 report from consultant Chetan Sharma, data traffic just began to outstrip voice traffic on mobile networks, and the US has become the top mobile data market in the world. Although Americans are still talking on their phones—the CTIA says that Americans dialed 2.3 trillion minutes of calls in 2009—data usage is growing much faster than voice usage.
Data networks will get even more important as cell-phone carriers fight their way towards what Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam once called "500% penetration." That means McAdam wants every American to own five different devices that connect to Verizon's network. Since almost everyone has a cell phone now, wireless carriers need to start selling more and different kinds of gadgets to expand their businesses (like AT&T's , for instance.) These are going to primarily be data, not voice devices.
Today's 3G data networks let you download at around a megabit per second. That's slower than most home cable and DSL connections. But the latest technologies, such as HSPA+ 21 and WiMAX, are delivering much faster speeds, with averages above 2 megabits/second and peaks up to 9 megabits/second in our tests. That means mobile connection speeds could leapfrog some home connections within the next few years.
3G, 4G and More G
Our results show the difference between the 3G and 4G technologies different wireless carriers are using. AT&T and T-Mobile use a faster technology than Cricket, Verizon, and Sprint do, and it shows. Recently AT&T and T-Mobile both upgraded their networks to HSPA 7.2, which has a maximum theoretical download speed of 7.2 megabits/sec. T-Mobile is going even further; in four cities, they've upgraded to HSPA+ 21, which has a maximum theoretical speed of 21 megabits/sec.
By comparison, the EVDO Rev A technology used by Cricket, Verizon, and Sprint has a theoretical maximum download speed of only 3.1 megabits/sec. That's why Sprint and Verizon are investing so heavily in "4G" technologies. While there's no real, scientific definition of 4G, it's used to refer to new, incompatible networks that are much faster than 3G.
The two 4G camps, for now, are WiMAX and LTE. Sprint started working with WiMAX three years ago, and they have a few dozen cities covered. Everyone else has chosen LTE. Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS will roll out their first LTE cities this year, with AT&T following in 2011. Sprint has murmured about possibly switching from WiMAX to LTE, but they haven't made any official announcements. For now, they're sticking with WiMAX.
The highest speeds we saw in the whole country were on 4G WiMax, with 8 and 9 megabit downloads. Unfortunately, these results were very uneven, and in many locations the 3G networks were actually faster. We're hoping to see better results from Verizon's 4G LTE network, which the company just demonstrated in Boston.
For now, you probably won't see these top speeds on a phone. Few phones support the latest speeds. The is the only phone that can access Sprint's 4G network, although more devices are coming later this year. No phones can hit T-Mobile's HSPA+ speeds yet. So while AT&T's HSPA 7.2 and the CDMA EVDO used by Cricket, Sprint 3G, and Verizon are slower than those two technologies, you'll find many more device options for those networks.
Even if a phone's modem can hit a network's maximum speed, the phone's processor, video chip, or browser may not be able to process data at that speed. On the recent , for instance, we found relatively little difference in Web page rendering times between 3G and Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi is faster, of course, but the BlackBerry's browser isn't fast enough to take advantage of the difference.
Different Carriers, Different Strengths
Beyond the speed scores, each of the six networks we tested (Sprint has two) showed different strengths.
AT&T had the fastest nationwide mobile network, thanks to their deployment of HSPA 7.2 technology across the U.S. The company has committed to upgrading to HSPA+ 14.4 by the end of the year, which should double AT&T's speed across the country. However, AT&T can't rest on its laurels; it had the lowest consistency score of the four national networks, reflecting the most dropouts in our tests.
Cricket is a low-cost carrier available in 10 of our 18 cities. Cricket's network had excellent consistency and stability, and they charge lower rates than the competition. 5GB of Internet is $40/month, while 10GB runs $60/month. That's double the data you get from the nationwide 3G players.
T-Mobile is coming up fast. The nation's #4 carrier got a late start with 3G, but it's growing by leaps and bounds. T-Mobile's HSPA 7.2 speeds were somewhat lower than AT&T's overall, but the new HSPA+ 21 network that T-Mobile is currently in the midst of installing is blazing fast—faster, in some cities, than "4G" WiMAX.
Sprint has a solid, reliable 3G network and a growing 4G WiMAX network. After largely squandering a two-year 4G lead in corporate reorganizations and other machinations, Sprint's 4G build is picking up, with faster speeds in Baltimore than we've seen in previous tests and the first WiMAX-capable smartphones hitting the market. Extremely inconsistent speeds show that Sprint needs to keep an eye on their WiMAX buildout, though. Sprint's networks are also sold under various other names, including Virgin (3G) and Clear (4G).
Verizon Wireless didn't show great speeds in our tests, but speed isn't Verizon's core strength. As we've seen in hundreds of cell-phone reviews, Verizon has excellent nationwide coverage and voice-call quality, which we didn't test in this data-centric, 18-city story. Verizon's lower-than-average speeds underscore how much the carrier needs its new 4G LTE data network to launch if it wants to remain a leader.
Click through to our city-by-city results to see which networks delivered the best speeds in each of our 18 cities.