AT&T Named 2019's Fastest U.S. Mobile Network in Annual PCMag Carrier Showdown

[smirking]

...Although, everywhere I've gone I always had a Verizon Signal.

That's been my experience too, but I don't find that I always have a fast Verizon signal. I just have a reliable Verizon signal and that's what I want more than speed. I also carry a T-Mobile device and at times have carried an AT&T device as well. It's not unusual for my T-Mobile or AT&T device to totally smoke my main Verizon device, but they either work great or barely work whereas my Verizon phone rarely ever drops below acceptable.

 

[michaelsviews]

I agree 100%! I have never had an issue with AT&T customer support. I do not know if it is because I have a New York State Employee account (for working at a hospital) or they just improved.

Back in the Cingular days, they were pretty terrible...but I wanted the first generation iPhone (and every iPhone since) so I switched from Sprint-Nextel.

More on topic, that map seems to be correct as I live (obviously) in the NorthEast and my signal now, compared to say two years ago, is always four bars. It most likely helps that my condo building has either AT&T repeaters or tower like equipment on the top. I talked with the AT&T guys when they were putting the equipment on the top of the building, however, cannot remember what they put up there.

My guess is repeaters? Maybe someone with better knowledge of what they put on top of buildings (mine is 11 stories) can tell me what is up above me a bit?

You mite want to find someone with a meter that checks for the signal

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

So that was a ***** lie.

Source: Me, busing across PA, NJ, and into NYC.
[doublepost=1561120705][/doublepost]

Although, everywhere I've gone I always had a Verizon Signal.

While I'm utterly disappointed with my AT&T performance (or lack thereof) on my recent trip, I can however say that I have signal where it counts most:

When I'm at camp and my dad tries telling me that he has signal with Verizon everywhere... meanwhile he doesn't even have 2G and I'm in the middle of an LTE download.

 

[nburwell]

Fast doesn't mean reliable.

Couldn't have said it any better myself. I'd much rather have a reliable network than a fast one. But that's just me.

I have been with T-Mobile for about three years now. Switched from AT&T and have not regretted the switch one bit.

 

[PlayUltimate]

I love how they cover up Kansas and Oklahoma... We're so insignificant they we don't even show up on a map. Are they South-Central? North-Central... who cares, they are Unimportant-Central.

Flyover. Used to be able to say the same about CO, but DIA is a busy airport.

 

[BeforeTheMeds]

Moving where we are now we had to switch from t-mobile due to very spotty reception. We went at&t and while reception is better t-mobile was definitely faster.

I hated moving because of price, but reception was way too bad.

Both have horrible customer service. Have never seen good customer service with at&t, even back to when they were Southwestern Bell. T-mobile is just as bad.

 

[jlocker]

We are one of the test sites for the ATT 5G services in Kalamazoo MI, and WOW it is fast! They are putting up a new 5G tower near where i live so when it is done. I think that i am going to switch from att U verse and go with the ATT 5G residential services.
I get 75mbps down and 25mbps which is still very good and the connection has been rock solid with u verse but with 5G residential, it will be faster. U Verse has never let me down and has been worth every penny.

It is going to be a while for ATT replace the old copper lines with fiber optics in my neighborhood.

 

[SomeSoftwareGuy]

These kind of posts are awesome! I love reading people’s input and argue with others on how great their wireless carrier is and others are worthless.

I love what I get for the price so pay and that’s all that matters to me.

Which carrier do you currently use?

Just curious because I get a ~%20 corp discount from At&t and I still think I'm paying too much for what I'm actually getting. I started looking at mint, but as an MVNO I'm not real confident in switching over.

 

[MDF314159265]

In my own experience, AT&T is horrible in SoCal. You get solid reception (if the “bars” are an accurate indicator), but <.5 mbps up/down speeds are still the norm. When I’m within line of sight and within 1/4 mile of a tower, transfer speeds are incredible. But being that I’m near/working in San Diego area, there are hills everywhere. And buildings. And for whatever reason, being near a Costco often seems to entirely kill my connection.
Furthermore, again in my own experience, their customer service has gone from great to terrible. I’ve been with them since the orange stick figure days. Only in the last 1-2 years has their service & reliability significantly dwindled.

 

[B4U]

At what cost?

 

[mrow]

I mean, T-Mobile is more than capable when you consider the price, and it doesn't even throttle you until you get to 50GB. The difference isn't that big, especially on a phone. They're all so fast now that I consider price, data caps and coverage to be more important.

A year ago I would have agreed with you. However, here in NYC over the last year, T-Mobile has really taken a dive. Lots of instances of strong signal but data is unusable. T-Mobile has been working to improve it by adding more and more small cells block by block, but they haven’t been moving quick enough. I’m sticking it out, because I have a crazy good deal and WiFi is absolutely everywhere in this city, in hopes that 600MHz, 5G, and their continued rollout of smaller cell sites make the situation better.

 

[JosephAW]

Once you have an unlocked iPhone there's lots of choices and plans to choose from.
My work iPhone 6 has a cricket plan for unlimited talk and text for $25, $30 for 2gb. My Virgin mobile flip phone has unlimited talk and text for $20 mo.

 

[Guda.FL]

I agree with South East. I have both Att and Tmobile, att is ok...however when I need it I always have data and signal. Tmobile is great out in the open, though when I really need it to retrieve a PDF or other....even at 5 bars there would be 0 data coming through at times.

I am not impressed with Att'speeds however it's got a signal/data everywhere I go. Tmobile did improve a lot over the years, however once you leave a city to take the turnpike or i95 to another, in-between you won't have much usable service at all.

 

[b11051973]

I've been on AT&T the last couple years in Minnesota. Works fine for me. I had Verizon before that and it was good too.

I tried T-Mobile for maybe a month, two years ago. Absolutely terrible. When I got a signal, it was ridiculously slow. Like downloading a 40MB podcast took 40 minutes. On AT&T that download from the same location took seconds.

 

[AlphaGuitarist]

I live in NYC (Staten Island) and use AT&T. I typically get anywhere between 60 and 120 Mbps downstream in my area, depending on time of day. When I lived in Brooklyn, I never got over 15 Mbps in my old neighborhood.

 

[BeforeTheMeds]

Which carrier do you currently use?

Just curious because I get a ~%20 corp discount from At&t and I still think I'm paying too much for what I'm actually getting. I started looking at mint, but as an MVNO I'm not real confident in switching over.

I agree. I get 25% veterans discount and as far as I’m concerned it’s still overpriced. Sure wish t-mobiles coverage was better

 

[jerryk]

I’m on AT&T in the LA Metropolitan Area, and if this is the fastest cellular network America has, sheez, we’re in trouble.
My son studies in the Netherlands and mobile internet there is an order of magnitude faster at half the price.

Asia is even better. A lot of people don't even bother with home wifi because cellular is cheap and just as fast.

 

[CaryMacGuy]

These results don't jive with what I have experienced. I had T-Mobile for about 6 months and it was absolutely terrible. I recently switched to Spectrum Mobile (which is an MVNO, leasing Verizon's towers) and it is absolutely awesome. I live in NC, which is in T-Mobile's strong area but I guess not for me.

 

[robertcoogan]

Very interesting. I would disagree a little bit with this map. SoCal's AT&T service is horrible. When I was in west TX, AT&T was king and had better service. I have a feeling this is based on the major cities skewing the number. Although, everywhere I've gone I always had a Verizon Signal. Maybe AT&T is finally figuring out their over congestion. We will see what happens with the new 5G network continues to roll out and measure those download speeds.

You're absolutely right. ATT has horrible service in the cities and in the desert. Verizon is very fast here, I wish I had chosen them.

 

[gsurf123]

Well I’m going to try t mobile for the 2020 iPhone , looking at that chart it’s 100% right , in Miami att coverage is gray but the internet is super slow on large crows , traffic and I’m on the unlimited plan , also 22gb limit is crap

Lower you bar for Sprint and T-Mobile if you are out of metropolitan areas. If you don't you'll be unpleasantly surprised out how marginal it is.

 

[scottct1]

Here in Hartford, CT I don't even get 3 Mb/s down.

Wish they would have done that test here.

 

[xpxp2002]

Ha. Average 4G download speeds of 50Mbps+. I don't think I've ever seen higher than 30... Maybe they drove around at night right next to towers...

I agree. AT&T actually has more spectrum, but Verizon is king here where I live, despite having far more subscribers.

I rarely ever get >35 Mbps down on AT&T LTE and I regularly get <1Mbps up. The other side of town from where I live and work is "5Ge" and when I've speed tested there, it doesn't seem much better.

One time a couple years ago, I got 90Mbps down at 1 AM right after they rebooted a cell site or something. Service went completely out for about 5 minutes. When it came back everybody must've given up trying to use their phones because I was able to get super low latency and almost 100Mbps. Within a half hour, speeds were back to their normal sluggish 20-30 Mbps.

I’ve had AT&T since the Cingular Wireless days and CS has gradually improved from god-awful to very good in the last three encounters. They truly seem to want to make you happy. Competition? I don’t know.

Same. The CS hours have dwindled. When I was with them in the early 2000s I recall a time when I believe they had 24/7 CS. Now it's like 9-7 M-F or something close to that. Last time I called during the day, though, I got one of the most helpful customer service reps I've had the experience talking with at any company. I basically needed a SIM replacement, and in order to get me one same day he scouted out which stores locally would do it for free and even called a non-corp store to ask on my behalf. I ended up going to a corp store a bit further away, and the rep there was super friendly and got me swapped out in probably a minute and a half. Best experience I've had with AT&T since the Cingular days around 2003.

 

[kc2kth]

I've considered moving from AT&T to TMO for years. Here in NJ, and most of the places I travel to, there is not really much of a difference in coverage or speed. I tested this a few years ago over the period of one year with a dual sim 1+ 3 phone. Even internationally, which I maybe do 1-2 times per year. AT&T is always reasonable and reliable. I might save a few bucks on TMO domestically if I switched, but I'd have to buy new devices for the best savings and it seems their international plan isn't quite as good. This has always kept me with AT&T.

 

[BlandUsername]

In TN, my experience has been that Verizon is significantly better than AT&T and Sprint. Perhaps that is changing but I haven’t yet seen evidence.

I would say TMo and Sprint Are Awful in Knox and surrounding areas. Walked out of the TMo store and signal dropped 2 bars. 2 weeks later, back on ATT, refuse to pay verizon what they ask around here.

 

[Mr. Mad Vibes]

I get it. Tmo is not the best. When they merge with Sprint. We must have better results!