The Fastest Mobile Networks 2011
PCMag hit the road to test eight 3G and 4G networks in 21 U.S. cities. Before you buy your next phone or tablet, find out which wireless carrier has the fastest data network where you live.
With smartphone innovation moving at a breakneck pace, new tablets hitting the market all the time, and an increasing number of people using cellular modems and mobile hotspots to get online on the go, access to speedy data coverage is becoming more essential every day.
But you shouldn't believe the hype: All "4G" is not the same. In a 21-city test across the United States, we found that Verizon's new 4G LTE network is much faster than other mobile Web options, with speeds that often exceed home Internet connections.
There's no question that 4G is spreading across the nation, but there's a lot of confusion over what 4G exactly is. AT&T, MetroPCS, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless aren't just using varied technologies; sometimes they're implementing the same technology very differently. So we sent six drivers on in Ford cars with lots of mobile phones and custom software designed by network testing firm Sensorly to see just how fast these 4G Internet connections really are. (See for more details.)
we tested with laptops. For our second annual test, we switched to phones, to more accurately reflect how Americans are using the mobile Internet. According to research firm NPD, as of the first quarter of 2011, more than half of all new mobile phones purchased in the U.S. were smartphones, and analysts have projected that will grow.
We didn't test voice quality or dropped calls, which we've already surveyed, as part of our annual . The tests for this story were all about mobile Internet. We ran more than 140,000 tests in 21 cities. Not all the networks were available in all the cities, as you'll see on the individual city pages. Most notably, cities generally have either Cricket or MetroPCS as a local option.
We didn't test coverage either, but our technology partner Sensorly does. Head over to the company's website, or download the Sensorly app from the Android Market to see crowdsourced coverage maps for all the major U.S. mobile carriers, enhanced with the data from our test drives.
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 few days' worth of usage in several locations across a metro area. So without further delay, we give you the winners:
Northeast: Verizon 4G
Verizon's new 4G network covers many of the Northeast's top metro areas, including Boston, the Hartford-New York-Philadelphia corridor, Pittsburgh, and the Baltimore-Washington corridor. We tested in Pittsburgh, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC. In those areas, while T-Mobile's HSPA+ 21 network is also speedy, Verizon's 4G is by far the fastest. Outside the metro areas, AT&T offered the best balance of speed and coverage.
Southeast: Verizon 4G
In the Southeast, we tested in Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Miami/Fort Lauderdale. Verizon's 4G network came out the fastest in every city, while outside the cities, AT&T and T-Mobile virtually tied for best results. Pick Verizon for speed and AT&T for coverage.
Central: Verizon 4G
Our Central region included our only city without Verizon 4G, Kansas City. We also tested in Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Oklahoma City and Dallas. Even with a zero score for Kansas City, Verizon 4G was the fastest network for the region. (It also covers a large area around Chicago and in central Oklahoma.) The Central cities were some of the nation's fastest, overall. We saw leading speeds in Chicago, Dallas, and Detroit.
West: Verizon 4G
Verizon's 4G system was the fastest in the West as well. We tested in the states of Arizona, California, and New Mexico, as we couldn't get our drivers as far as the Northwest. Verizon 4G won every city it was in thanks to its stellar download speeds. Outside the cities, AT&T delivered the fastest connections, but Verizon's much slower 3G network was the most reliable.
Rural America: AT&T
For us, "rural America" included everywhere we drove that wasn't in one of our 21 metro areas—not only wide-open spaces in Arizona, but mid-sized cities like Macon, Georgia and Midland, Texas.
The new 4G networks are generally polka dots on the U.S. map, or bubbles around the nation's major cities. In the spaces between them, AT&T won the crown for the best balance of speed and consistency on its 3G, HSPA 7.2 network.
Nationwide: Verizon 4G
Overall, Verizon's LTE system is remarkably faster than the technologies AT&T, MetroPCS, Sprint and T-Mobile are currently using for "4G." Even with one hand tied behind its back—a 20-percent penalty to its speed score for its lack of rural coverage—Verizon's new 4G network trounced the other carriers. In many areas, it was even faster than some DSL or cable connections.
Different Carriers, Different Strengths
Beyond the speed scores, each of the eight networks we tested (Sprint and Verizon each have two) showed different strengths.
AT&T's nationwide 3G network still offers the best balance of speed and performance outside major cities, but the giant carrier is struggling in big cities against Verizon's LTE network and T-Mobile's nimble HSPA+ technology. AT&T is moving to HSPA+ 21 right now and plans to introduce an LTE network this summer, so we could see the carrier's position recover in 2012.
Verizon Wireless has two very different networks: a slow, but reliable nationwide 3G network and a blazingly fast 4G LTE network with limited coverage. The combination seems to be working out, as Verizon's 4G system swept our Fastest Mobile Networks awards while its 3G voice network got top marks in our Readers' Choice awards for its terrific coverage and call quality.
T-Mobile was the second-fastest network nationwide, and it's continuing to upgrade its speeds all the time. The carrier's existing HSPA+ 21 network is being replaced by HSPA+ 42, which could provide LTE-like speeds. (See our review of the for a first look at HSPA+ 42). Of course, all of this could come to an end if AT&T buys T-Mobile, as the larger company has pledged to shut down T-Mobile's network to use the airwaves for LTE.
Sprint is in the toughest position in our tests. The carrier is struggling with speed and consistency, and the partner it relies on for its WiMAX network, Clearwire, has perpetual financial problems. But Sprint has one huge advantage: the nation's only truly unlimited 4G plan, making it the only network that you can use to replace a home Internet connection.
Sprint's 4G network has upload speeds that are artificially capped to 1Mbps, as our testing showed. In June, Sprint announced that it would be raising the cap at some undefined point in the future to 1.5Mbps. That isn't reflected in our results, which were tested in May.
We recalculated our numbers to check Sprint's scores to see if its upload speeds were increased by 50 percent in every city. That wouldn't necessarily happen, of course, but it was worth checking out. Faster uploads would definitely solve some of Sprint's problems. A 50-percent boost to upload speeds would have made Sprint 4G the winner in Kansas City, put it in second place to Verizon 4G in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Jacksonville, and made it tie for second with T-Mobile in Atlanta and Las Vegas.
Cricket is a low-cost carrier available in 12 of our 21 cities. While its 3G network is comparatively slow, it currently charges $55 per month for unlimited smartphone usage, which is considerably less than the major players. It also covers many smaller cities. Cricket will be introducing an LTE network next year.
MetroPCS, like Verizon Wireless, offers LTE. But the small carrier, available in 11 of our 21 cities, is doing something very different with its 4G; rather than offering spectacular speeds, it's going for merely decent speeds at very low rates. The carrier's average speed is like a very good 3G network, but unlimited talk, text and Internet access costs just $60 a month—or about half of what Verizon charges.
Are You Getting 4G?
It's a common general term, but "4G" means different things to different people. It depends who you ask.
This year, five different mobile carriers are offering 4G connectivity in different parts of America. But as our 21-city tests show, AT&T, MetroPCS, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless all deliver very different coverage, speeds, and even technologies.
The gold standard for 4G is LTE, which stands for Long Term Evolution. LTE is a brand-new network, which isn't compatible with older devices, and it can be stunningly fast. Verizon's current system sometimes shows us download speeds as fast as 20-30 Mbps, speedier than most home cable connections.
LTE is a global standard, although many U.S. LTE phones aren't anticipated to work globally because our frequency bands are different from the rest of the world's. LTE will eventually completely replace existing mobile networks, both for data and phone calls. Verizon and MetroPCS have both said they're going to use VoLTE, or voice-over-LTE, for phone calls starting in 2012.
That's not to say everyone's LTE system is the same. Verizon and MetroPCS have taken very different paths. Verizon is trying to cover the whole nation with super-fast LTE by 2013. MetroPCS only covers 14 regions, and has developed a network with much slower speeds so it can offer extremely low prices.
Eventually, everyone is moving to LTE. AT&T is launching LTE in five cities this summer, and AT&T and T-Mobile have framed their potential merger as being about expanding LTE coverage. Sprint's current 4G network provider, Clearwire, has been testing LTE. Cricket and U.S. Cellular have also confirmed that they are launching LTE networks this year.
A new entrant, LightSquared, wants to build an LTE network which it would share with Sprint, Cricket and smaller firms, but LightSquared has been caught in battles with the government and the GPS industry over its network interfering with GPS because of the frequency band it uses.
You can think of the other "4G" standards out there as interim steps.
Sprint was the first U.S. carrier to introduce 4G with its WiMAX network back in 2008. At first, it looked like WiMAX would become a major competitor to LTE, the way Verizon/Sprint's CDMA dukes it out with AT&T and T-Mobile's GSM cellular technology. But now it's looking like WiMAX is fading over the long run.
AT&T and T-Mobile are currently billing HSPA+ as 4G. HSPA+ is a smooth upgrade for existing 3G devices, and it works with current phones. In fact, because a big part of the HSPA+ upgrade is adding faster Internet connections (known as backhaul) to existing towers, HSPA+ can make 3G phones faster, too. There are different levels of HSPA+, as well. AT&T is currently installing the most basic, called HSPA+ 21, while T-Mobile is in the process of upgrading to a faster mode, HSPA+ 42.
To further confuse things, AT&T and T-Mobile are also calling slower HSPA 14.4 phones like the and the "4G," although T-Mobile's own CTO once said that shouldn't be the case. We draw the line at HSPA+ 21.
Fast, But Limited Connections
4G is lightning fast, but it still isn't generally a replacement for a home broadband connection. That's because, except for Sprint, the 4G providers slap very low data caps on their services.
After just 5GB for most subscribers-less than a third of what AT&T says its home cable customers use each month-wireless customers find their speeds cut down or they rack up additional monthly charges. Sprint's 4G network offers the only truly unlimited plan.
Coverage is spreading, but it's also still limited. We found multiple 4G options in most of our 21 cities. Verizon's 4G network now covers 74 metro areas. T-Mobile has HSPA+ 42 in 96 metro areas, according to the carrier, and MetroPCS covers 14 regions with LTE. Sprint's 4G partner Clearwire says it covers more than 80 cities.
This includes both larger and smaller locales. Sprint's 4G is available on two Hawaiian islands and in Boise, Idaho. Verizon's 4G just came to Lansing, Michigan and T-Mobile proudly reports that it has 4G in Bentonville, Arkansas. For a quick look at carrier's 4G coverage as of June 1, 2011, see . Note, however, that AT&T does not offer a map of its 4G coverage, and that more 4G markets have been added in June.
Some cities are favored more highly than others. Philadelphia and Las Vegas residents have also always been blessed when it comes to next-gen mobile networks. And after a slow start, New York City residents now have four 4G choices.
If you're in rural America, it may be a while before you see 4G. Verizon has pledged to cover almost its entire national network with 4G by 2013. AT&T says it will cover 80 percent of Americans with LTE by 2013. U.S. Cellular, a major rural player, has only promised so far that it will cover 25 percent of its subscribers by the end of 2011, with more to come in 2012. (U.S. Cellular declined participation in our tests.)
When we do this study in 2012, AT&T, Cricket and U.S. Cellular will have turned on LTE, T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 will be much more widespread, and Sprint may be switching to LTE. Hopefully, coverage areas will be wider, too. Will Verizon Wireless still rule? Check back next year.
How We Tested
This year's wireless network tests were more involved, and on a larger scale, than . We used 16 handsets shepherded by six drivers to 21 cities, covering more than 6,000 miles. Here's how we did it:
Ford was gracious enough to loan us two cars, a Ford Focus and a Ford Fiesta. In each of those cars we loaded a Duracell Digital Inverter 400 to power eight phones (we also had a for Tweeting), one from each of our 3G or 4G networks. The phones we used included:
AT&T:
Cricket:
MetroPCS:
Sprint 3G:
Sprint 4G: HTC EVO 4G
T-Mobile:
Verizon 3G:
Verizon 4G:
Because of the different technologies involved, we used separate phones to test Sprint's and Verizon's 3G and 4G networks, but we couldn't separate AT&T's and T-Mobile's 3G areas from 4G areas.
On each phone, we loaded custom speed test software from Sensorly, a French network testing firm. The software tests HTTP uploads and downloads, UDP streams at 80Kbps and 400Kbps, signal strength and network consistency, recorded as the number of tests that achieve the ITU 3G standard of 144Kbps. The tests run automatically for 25 seconds every 3 minutes.
In each city, we tried to make at least 10 stops of 15 minutes each, at least a mile apart. We also left the software running while the car was moving. In rural areas, we just drove naturally, stopping for gas or when we were tired or hungry, letting the test software run most of the time.
How We Calculated the Speed Index
The PCMag Mobile Speed Index is a weighted average taking into account several factors. Of 100 points:
• HTTP average download speeds=40 points
• HTTP average upload speeds=20 points
• The percentage of HTTP downloads achieving 3G (144Kbps or greater) status, marking a consistent 3G connection=20 points
• Successful 80Kbps (audio) and 400Kbps (video) streaming over UDP, with less than 1 percent packet loss=10 points
• Successful 400Kbps (video) streaming over UDP, with less than 1
percent packet loss=10 points
The HTTP downloads and uploads simulate Web browsing and file downloads, so they got a lot of weight. The UDP streaming tests simulate apps like VOIP and video calls, YouTube, and Pandora. The index is normalized against the best result in each category for the geography being measured. (In other words, the best carrier in a given comparison for each test got the maximum score for each test.)
The regional scores were an average of all of the cities across the region, counting the rural results for the region as an extra city. If a carrier was not available in one of a region's cities, it got a zero for that city and its score was lowered accordingly.
For the rural regions, only the four national networks (AT&T, Sprint 3G, T-Mobile and Verizon 3G) were tested and eligible for awards.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does all of this data tell us? Our tests will give you information about mobile broadband Web connections from smartphones, tablets, and laptops. The results tell you which networks are the fastest, and which are the most consistent.
How did we pick the cities? We wanted to get a range of cities each about a day's drive apart, with as many cities with 4G networks as possible.
How did we pick the carriers? We tested six out of the top seven U.S. wireless carriers. U.S. Cellular declined to be involved with this year's story.
How did we pick the phones? We went for solid, reliable, and popular phones with very similar software and hardware, but each network's fastest possible modem. All the phones run Android 2.2 with single-core processors at about 1GHz, except for two. The AT&T phone runs at 1.2GHz, but it was the only phone we could find with an AT&T HSPA+ 4G modem, and the Cricket phone runs at 600MHz, but it's Cricket's fastest Android 2.2 phone.
What about dropped calls? None of our tests involved phone calls. We covered call quality in our Reader's Choice awards this year; US Cellular and Verizon Wireless won the awards.
Why doesn't this reflect my personal experience? The experience on an individual phone may have as much to do with the model of handset being used as the network. Also, since we tested a limited number of locations in each city, we can't account for individual dead zones or trouble spots, for example, in your front yard.
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta may be one of AT&T's hometowns, but now it's a Verizon 4G city. Although Verizon 4G was less consistent on our tests in Atlanta than it was in some other locales, it was still much, much faster than the competition, with an average download speed over 11Mbps.
Verizon's 3G network proves the value of steadiness. While its average download speeds were only one-fourteenth the 4G network's speeds, it actually did better on our simulated streaming audio and streaming video tests. Since Verizon 4G phones automatically drop down to 3G, this makes Verizon an even better buy in Atlanta.
We'd also like to give a nod to MetroPCS's network in Atlanta. While it was nowhere near the fastest—in fact, MetroPCS's 4G runs at more like 3G speeds-it was impressively consistent for a low-cost network, besting some of its faster major-label competitors on tasks like simulated music streaming.
Tweets from the Road
Boston, Massachusetts
Verizon 4G is the fastest wireless network in Beantown, with average download speeds higher than 8Mbps and peak speeds approaching 16Mbps in our trials. The Verizon 4G network was also solid and consistent from Charlestown to Jamaica Plain.
Other networks didn't fare quite as well; though we saw some impressive peak speeds on both Sprint's and T-Mobile's 4G networks, both had some issues with keeping those speeds consistent throughout the city.
Tweets from the Road
Charlotte, North Carolina
Verizon's new 4G LTE network delivered the best overall speeds in Charlotte, with average download speeds topping 12Mbps—that's faster than most people's home Internet connections. T-Mobile comes in second.
One of the things we noticed in Charlotte was how well all four of the "4G" networks behaved, at least on file downloads. AT&T, Sprint 4G, T-Mobile, and Verizon 4G were all relatively reliable, at least compared with other cities. That means Charlotte residents have a good selection of 4G networks.
The fastest spot in Charlotte, at least for us, was just east of Midtown, where we grabbed a blazing 31Mbps down on Verizon's network.
Tweets from the Road
Chicago, Illnois
The winds of 4G blow stiffly in Chicago, with Verizon's 4G network achieving speeds of up to 32Mbps in our tests to become the fastest network in the Second City. In fact, we pulled the nation's fastest average Verizon 4G speeds here.
T-Mobile's network was the fastest of the rest, but inconsistent; it had some trouble keeping up with our simulated video stream. Chicago's budget star is Cricket, which doesn't come in with very high speeds but has solid, consistent and reliable connections—more reliable than faster networks, in many cases.
What's the best 4G spot in Chicago? The campus of University of Illinois, Chicago, where a massive amount of bandwidth pours in to support the college's academic mission. We got great results on every network right outside University Hall on West Harrison St.
Tweets from the Road
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the nation's fastest wireless city! When averaged, our downloads in Dallas came out to 3.6Mbps down, faster than any other city we tested.
Of course, that fact masks big differences in Dallas's networks. Verizon 4G, as usual, was the fastest network in Dallas. T-Mobile almost tied with Dallas-based MetroPCS for second place, with MetroPCS's slower download speeds more than balanced out by great upload speeds and very reliable connections. Dallas was the fastest MetroPCS city in the nation.
Dallas also saw our single fastest download result in 21 cities: an staggering 37.6Mbps down with Verizon 4G on Royal Lane in North Dallas. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Tweets from the Road
Detroit, Michigan
Verizon 4G rules Detroit, with download speeds more than twice as fast as its nearest competitor and reliable, consistently 3G-or-better connections. But T-Mobile and MetroPCS also look like good values in Motown, with significantly lower rates but still speedy and consistent connections. AT&T's score was dragged down by choppy simulated streaming connections.
As always, our Verizon 4G phone delivered some shockingly fast results: We managed 25Mbps down outside the Detroit Institute of the Arts at Woodward and Warren Avenues. That's faster than Comcast's Xfinity cable Internet system, although you can't really use Verizon's 4G for home Internet because of its higher per-gigabyte price.
Tweets from the Road
Jacksonville, Florida
Our largest city by area, Jacksonville covers a lot of ground. We grabbed speed samples in Downtown, Midtown, on the South Side, and by Neptune Beach to figure out who's the fastest in Jacksonville.
Jacksonville isn't a speedy city, but it has several pretty good 4G options. Verizon's 4G LTE, like in other cities we tested, is the fastest here. The 4G network covers a wide swathe of the Jacksonville area, although it's patchy and you may end up dropping to 3G sometimes. Verizon's average download speeds of 4.5Mbps are slower than we saw elsewhere in the U.S., perhaps because of that patchy network.
T-Mobile and Sprint 4G are right on Verizon's heels, with T-Mobile scoring an even higher peak speed number. Considering that T-Mobile and Sprint both charge lower prices than Verizon (and Sprint, unlike the others, lets you download as much as you want at maximum speed), that makes three good choices for Jacksonville residents.
Tweets from the Road
Kansas City, Missouri
AT&T eked out a narrow win to become the fastest wireless network in Kansas City, our only test city without Verizon's 4G LTE network. AT&T won by balancing fast average speeds of about 2.8Mbps down with a reliable, consistent 3G experience.
But T-Mobile and Sprint's 4G lost by only a point, and they each have their strengths. In T-Mobile's case, it's the best top download speeds we saw, at 14Mbps. We just didn't see those speeds often. In the carrier's hometown, Sprint 4G offered solid and consistent connections at good speeds. Sprint's network actually would have won if it hadn't hit a slow spot outside the Kansas City Museum, so the denizens of Overland Park, Kansas can blame the Missouri side of the area for the hometown hero failing to triumph.
Tweets from the Road
Las Vegas, Nevada
Verizon's 4G network is a solid bet in Las Vegas, where its average download speed was more than twice as fast as its next competitor.
Las Vegas residents are spoiled for choice, though. Sin City is one of only two cities which has all eight of our tested networks (the other is Philadelphia). Sprint 4G and T-Mobile both look like good alternatives to Verizon in Las Vegas, especially considering Sprint's unlimited 4G plans.
Tweets from the Road
Los Angeles, California
The sprawl of L.A. is a tough area for 4G, unless you're Verizon Wireless. The carrier's 4G network was the fastest in L.A. by far, besting the competition on both speed and reliability.
As in most other cities, T-Mobile offers a strong second choice here. MetroPCS looks like a good budget bet here, but watch out for its coverage map, as the carrier doesn't cover many outlying parts of the wide Los Angeles area.
Tweets from the Road
Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Florida
We tested 17 locations through the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area to find that Verizon 4G is the fastest wireless network in South Florida. With average download speeds over 7Mbps, Verizon 4G also bested the other networks at our simulated audio and video streaming tests.
MetroPCS made a very strong showing to grab second place here. The low-cost carrier combines speeds faster than AT&T's with reliable 3G downloads. It looks like a winning combination.
We couldn't test Sprint's 4G network in Miami because our 4G phone locked itself into 3G mode, but as Sprint's 4G didn't best Verizon in any other cities, we're comfortable with our results here.
Tweets from the Road
Nashville, Tennessee
If you want to stream music in the Music City, go with Verizon Wireless. Verizon's 4G network was by far the fastest in Nashville, but both its 4G and 3G networks performed very well on our streaming tests as well. Nashville is also a speedy city for T-Mobile, one of the places where you can see two wireless carriers matching the kinds of speeds you get from a cable modem.
Web surfers looking for an alternative to DSL in the Nashville area should look into Sprint 4G. Sprint's WiMAX network scored a respectable 4.2Mbps down, and the company currently offers plans without the data caps that prevent you from using most wireless services as a home modem.
Tweets from the Road
New York, New York
New Yorkers, we have good news and bad news. Let us give you the bad news first. We know you like it that way.
AT&T's notorious New York City network problems are real, as our five-borough testing showed. (Yes, we even went to Staten Island.) In NYC, we got some of the slowest AT&T speeds, and least-reliable AT&T connections, of all the cities we tested. Even little MetroPCS is both faster and more reliable than AT&T in the Big Apple.
The good news is that you have a bunch of faster choices. New York has always been a Verizon town, and Verizon's new 4G LTE network is the fastest in the city. But we also saw peak speeds on Sprint 4G and T-Mobile topping 8Mbps, and MetroPCS turned in an impressive performance given its very low prices. Just stay away from AT&T in New York City.
So which borough is fastest? We got our best overall speeds in Astoria, Queens, which seems to have just the right combination of relatively low-rise buildings, but dense population to deliver great wireless signals.
Tweets from the Road
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Verizon's 4G LTE network is the fastest wireless network in Oklahoma City, and the carrier gets props for covering a wide swathe of this sprawling metro area, including the neighboring town of Norman. With average speeds over 8Mbps down, Verizon is bringing true high-speed, mobile broadband to OK City.
Tweets from the Road
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia freedom comes to wireless with lots of 3G and 4G choice. Philly is one of only two cities to feature all eight of our 3G/4G networks (the other is Las Vegas). All of those networks seem to crowd the airwaves a bit, as Philly isn't as fast overall as some of the other cities we tested. Verizon 4G is the fastest network in Philadelphia, with average download speeds of 9.11 Mbps. The fastest spot we tested? The Melrose Diner on Passyunk Avenue in South Philly, where we got more than 19Mbps down with Verizon.
As one of the few cities with both MetroPCS and Cricket, it's interesting to compare the two budget networks here. MetroPCS's network is faster, but Cricket's is more reliable and consistent, even for video streaming—MetroPCS just had too many dropouts in our tests. MetroPCS's problems seemed to be focused on certain neighborhoods, though, with its worst streaming results in the north Philadelphia suburbs and Olney.
Tweets from the Road
Phoenix, Arizona
Verizon 4G is hot in the Phoenix area. Verizon's new LTE network was the fastest by far in Phoenix, with considerably higher speeds and more reliable connections than its top competitor, T-Mobile.
Arizona needs more 4G in general, though. Sprint and MetroPCS 4G aren't found anywhere in the state, and Verizon's 4G doesn't yet cover Arizona's other major metro area, Tucson. Beyond Phoenix, Verizon's 3G network provided the most consistent experience, but at speeds of only about 1Mbps—a sixth of what we saw in Phoenix.
Tweets from the Road
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Verizon's 4G LTE network delivers the fastest wireless connections in Pittsburgh, with average download speeds around 8Mbps and a reliably speedy experience. T-Mobile's 4G also scored well in our tests, offering the second-fastest average download speeds and pretty consistent connections all around.
Tweets from the Road
San Diego, California
Verizon's 4G delivered scintillating download speeds in San Diego, although it's at the cost of some consistency. Although Verizon's download speeds were almost twice as fast as T-Mobile's, the latter showed faster uploads and more consistent, reliable connections all around.
San Diego may be Cricket's home, but it's not the best market for the scrappy little 3G carrier. We found Cricket's connections to be speedier and more solid in Chicago than they were here.
Tweets from the Road
San Francisco, California
Verizon's 4G network is the fastest in San Francisco, with speeds more than doubling its nearest competitors.
AT&T has done a better job recovering from its well-known network problems in San Francisco than New York. We got much faster speeds and much more reliable connections on AT&T in San Francisco; in fact, whatever data capacity issues the carrier had seem to be pretty much licked.
Tweets from the Road
St. Louis, Missouri
Verizon's 4G was the fastest network in St. Louis, but it comes at a price: Connections were less consistent than other networks, and less consistent than Verizon's 4G in other cities.
For slower speeds but a more consistent link, Missourians can turn to AT&T, which scored about half the average speed of Verizon's 4G—4.6Mbps compared with 8.7Mbps—but delivered a much more reliably speedy experience. St. Louis was the nation's fastest city for AT&T connections, and the only place where AT&T's download speeds bested T-Mobile's.
Or simply let your Verizon 4G phone fall back to Verizon's slow, but very solid 3G network, while Big Red fills in some coverage gaps in St. Louis.
Tweets from the Road
Washington, DC
The Metro DC area was one of our slower areas overall, and although Verizon 4G LTE is the fastest network in the Capital Region, it was a bit less consistent here than in some other cities we tested. T-Mobile came out as the consistency champ, with the best track record of reliable 3G connections.
T-Mobile's pretty-fast speeds here, like elsewhere in the Northeast, make the smaller carrier a great alternative to Verizon Wireless for DC-area residents.
Tweets from the Road
Rural Central
The middle of the country has plenty of areas where there's no signal at all. Still, as we drove from Chicago down through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and finally across all of Texas, we left our four 3G phones on to see whose network would stream across the lonely miles.
AT&T is the fastest mobile network in our Central U.S. tests. Like in the other rural regions we tested, AT&T combines a technology that's faster than Verizon and Sprint's 3G with a more consistent 3G experience than T-Mobile's.
Honorary mention here goes to Sprint 4G, which we didn't test on this rural run. Sprint 4G covers a startling number of smaller cities in Texas, including Abilene, Midland-Odessa, and Waco. If you live in one of those midsized burgs, Sprint may be your high-speed carrier of choice.
Tweets from the Road
Rural Northeast
The new 4G networks are great, but they're just dots on the grand American landscape. Even in densely populated areas like the Northeast, 4G just isn't reliable. And it won't be for years: Verizon said it will be 2013 before the carrier blankets the entire nation with LTE.
So as we drove across the state of New York from the Pennsylvania to Massachusetts state lines, across Massachusetts to Boston and then down the I-91 and I-95 corridors, we tested the good old, national 3G networks. The fastest network in the Northeast outside the major cities is AT&T.
AT&T won out over T-Mobile, which offers slightly faster download speeds, because of a much more consistent 3G experience; our T-Mobile phone just dropped down to EDGE too often in our drives.
Verizon's 3G network, meanwhile, is the most consistent and reliable of all, but it's much slower than the competition.
Tweets from the Road
Rural Southeast
The Southeast is one of AT&T's home regions: AT&T was in part formerly Cingular, which was formerly BellSouth, which was based in Atlanta, and pretty much owned that part of the country.
So you shouldn't be surprised to find out that as we drove across North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and down the Florida coast, AT&T was the fastest mobile network for the rural Southeast. The story here follows what we saw in our other rural regions. T-Mobile has higher speeds but dropped out of 3G mode too often; Verizon Wireless was more reliable, but significantly slower. AT&T's combination of speed and reliability won the day on our southern drive.
Rural West
Our driver here, Lead Analyst Tim Gideon, went a little crazy on our West Coast run. He took our car out into the middle of the Mojave Desert—you can see the test phones hitting cell-phone towers miles away-and then up Route 1, where he ran into a landslide south of Big Sur. Combine that with previous driver, Matt Murray's tour of Arizona landmarks, and we have a lot of very entertaining data from some of the West's biggest tourist attractions.
So what's the best network for sending those Grand Canyon photos home? AT&T. The carrier crushed the three other national carriers in the rural West thanks to much higher download speeds, even though it was less reliable than Verizon's slower 3G network.
The West is a tough area for phones in general, though. Thanks to those desert and coastal drives, we got less reliable connections in the West than we did in our other rural regions.
Tweets from the Road