Opensignal notes in its latest 5G experience report that T-Mobile USA is the winner in almost all the categories it tracks.
The report is based on data collected before AT&T and Verizon began launching C-band 5G services — a way of illustrating the value of the band to them, even as the move caused a huge uproar in the U.S. air travel and transportation industry. At least in Opensignal's view, neither company can compete with T-Mobile's 5G network in the U.S. in terms of speed or availability until they launch their respective C-band services.
According to measurements, T-Mobile's U.S. availability is more than twice that of its closest competitors. Opensignal found that during its measurements, T-Mobile U.S. users had an average of 35.4 percent of the time they could get an available 5G signal. At the same time, AT&T customers have only 16.5% of the time to use real 5G, and Verizon users only have 9.5% of the time to use 5G.
Opensignal explained that T-Mobile U.S. relies on the 2.5GHz band as the primary bearer band for 5G services, which is the main reason for its wider coverage. AT&T and Verizon's recent C-band 5G service is their first large-scale foray into midrange 5G, and almost all of the previous products have relied on higher-frequency technologies such as millimeter wave to deliver faster speeds.
While higher frequencies generally mean faster download and upload rates, the concomitant drawbacks are shorter transmission distances and poorer penetration of buildings than if the IF spectrum is high. The C-band should help both carriers close the gap with T-Mobile in this area in the future.
At the same time, T-Mobile's average download speed on all 5G terminal devices has also reached 150Mbps. Verizon's figure is 56.2Mbps, about a third of the former, and AT&T is third with 49.1Mbps.
Both the second and third-place operators offer selected coverage areas, where the downlink rate of their 5G services is much faster than the speed of T-Mobile's existing network in the United States, but in most areas the speed is almost no faster than that of the 4G network. It's a bit like a tortoise-rabbit race, with T-Mobile taking advantage of the average rate offered by the wider range of midrange 5G to be far ahead of what any competitor can offer at the moment, thanks entirely to its "ubiquity."
The importance of mid-band 5G to Verizon and AT&T's future network plans is why the two companies recently spent tens of billions of dollars to acquire more and more of the mid-spectrum spectrum in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) spectrum auction. That's why they're all so determined to launch their respective C-band products, despite opposition from the aviation industry.
Verizon Wireless has won at least some trophies in this competition. The company won opensignal's latest measurement category, 5G Gaming Experience and 5G Voice App Experience.
The 5G Gaming Experience category measures the performance of 5G networks for "real-time multiplayer mobile gaming" on a scale of 1-100, including factors such as latency, packet loss, and jitter. Verizon came in first with 79.9 points, AT&T second with 72.7 points, and T-Mobile finished last with 72.4 points.
At the same time, the 5G voice application experience also provides a similar 1-100 score indicator for the 5G performance of telecom companies in terms of "OTT voice services", including WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, Messenger and other applications. Verizon also narrowly won with 82.2 points, AT&T again in second place with 80.6 points, and T-Mobile in third place.
While Opensignal's latest 5G experience report shows the importance of the mid-band 5G spectrum, its next report is likely to be the most important in years — it will outline what advances the rollout of C-band 5G services will bring to AT&T and Verizon's ongoing efforts to catch up with T-Mobile's 5G networks.
C114 communication network Jiang Junmu