Among all U.S. carriers, Verizon has come out on top in a recent study as the fastest network — but not in all U.S. regions, keep in mind.
For instance, northeast and northwest folks would probably fare better with T-Mobile as their network, and AT&T rose on top in the south central region of Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana.
The results come amid the fierce competition between networks, all of them aggressively aching to trumpet the next in mobile network technology — 5G. AT&T's 5G Evolution plan, which it's been boasting quite proficiently, has come under fire for pretending to be something it isn't. No one can really be sure when 5G will arrive but expect these major carriers to fight their way to be the first.
Aside from the path toward 5G, the big four have also been aggressively competing in current plans and services. Both Verizon and AT&T introduced broad, low-cost unlimited data plans this year, following T-Mobile and Sprint's plans introduced last summer, which included data caps. Price slashing soon followed, and now even Sprint is offering users a year's worth of free service for anyone who switches to its network by June 30.
Results Show Verizon Is The Fastest Network, But Only Slightly
Price wars, however, don't matter much if a network can't offer impressive network coverage. In late 2016, Verizon came out on top nationally in tests performed by Rootmetrics. PCMag deployed testers around the United States and had them measure the network quality in that given area. Testing in 36 cities and rural areas, PCMag found that nearly all spots were seeing improved network quality.
"This was the tightest contest ever," according to the publication. AT&T had the highest average download speed nationally at 32.6 Mbps, and Verizon followed close behind at 31.1 Mbps. T-Mobile and Sprint delivered 29.3 and 20.5 Mbps, respectively.
"Verizon understands that it isn't quite enough just to install fast LTE technologies. You have to have the nation's most reliable 4G network as well, and that's where it came out ahead," according to PCMag
Samsung Galaxy S8 Beats The iPhone 7 In Network Speeds
PCMag's testing also found that the Samsung Galaxy S8, thanks to Qualcomm's latest modem packed under the hood, far outperformed the iPhone 7, which is packed with older chips from Qualcomm, or Intel in some models. This might be because of Apple and Qualcomm's legal battle, which roots back to Apple's deliberate move to limit the performance of iPhone units packed with Qualcomm's modems, so as not to outperform iPhone units with Intel modems baked inside.
That aside, the Galaxy S8 conclusively rendered a higher performance on all networks with the exception of Sprint in average download and upload speeds. Apple's rumored flagship could come in September, but it probably still won't beat the Galaxy S8 in terms of network capabilities.
Thoughts about Verizon being the fastest network out of all major carriers? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
