T-Mobile and Sprint make marked improvements
Nationwide mobile networks are being improved by carriers and resulting in improved customer experience, according to test and measurement firm Rootmetrics, which picks Verizon as the best carrier in the United States.
Rootmetrics released its “U.S. Mobile Network Performance Review” for the second half of 2014 on Feb. 10.
In terms of network performance, Verizon Wireless dominated in across-the-board metrics nationwide, on a state level and in the 125 metropolitan areas survey by Rootmetrics. AT&T Mobility came in second place in those same categories.
Report author Patrick Linder noted that T-Mobile US and Sprint made big steps toward improving data speed and reliability in the last half of 2014.
“The biggest improvement stories belong to T-Mobile and, especially, Sprint with its marked call improvement,” Linder wrote.
“Although T-Mobile finished lower in our national results,” he continued, “it recorded the third most awards at the metro level and remained ahead of Sprint at this level of our testing. The upgrades from these two networks are clearly starting to take hold and are impacting performance, in particular, at the metro level.”
He concluded: “In short, performance is trending in a positive direction, and consumers are benefitting from the changes we’ve seen.”
In compiling the report, Rootmetrics staff conducted some 5.7 million tests, drove 293,000 miles and surveyed 6,200 indoor locations.
Citing a Cellular Telephone Industries Association report, Rootmetrics counts 335.7 million mobile subscriptions in the United States. Compare that to a population of about 317.9 million.
The number suggest a nationwide mobile penetration rate of 105.6%; that means there are a number of people with more than one mobile subscription.
Rootmetrics positions itself as providing consumer-facing information and analysis.
In his report, Linder touches on the oft-confusing advertisements that belie the high-stakes price wars being played out among carriers.
“This proliferation of competing ads and information,” he wrote, “makes it hard to know what you can trust. These aren’t anecdotal results or hasty generalizations. Unlike studies that rely exclusively on crowd-sourced data, our methodology is designed to characterize network performance with a high level of statistical significance.”
Verizon Wireless took the top spot in the last Rootmetrics midyear report.
