Sprint and T-Mobile Make Improvements in 2014, but Continue to Trail Verizon and AT&T in Performance

[MacRumors]

The latest report from network monitoring firm RootMetrics shows that both Sprint and T-Mobile made improvements in overall performance during the second half of 2014. Verizon was ranked as the top carrier in the United States for the third consecutive study, trailed by AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, based on several categories: speed, reliability, call performance, text performance and data performance.

The new data reveals Sprint closed out the second half of 2014 on a high note with significant improvements in network speed, reliability and call performance. While it continues to trail market leaders Verizon and AT&T, Sprint's network enhancements were enough for it to surpass T-Mobile in the United States and on a state-by-state level during the final six months of the year.

While the network still trails the leaders in every category, Sprint made tremendous strides--particularly in reliability--in the second half of the year. In fact, Sprint improved its tally of reliability index wins by 25 (all shared) compared to what we saw in the first half. Also consider that in the first half of 2014, Sprint recorded a download success rate below 97% in 108 out of the 125 markets that we tested; in this round of testing, that market count had dropped down to 52.

Despite ranking last in the United States and on a state-by-state level, T-Mobile continued to make improvements in large metro areas, with fewer dropped calls, blocked calls and failed downloads. RootMetrics predicts T-Mobile could place even more pressure on leading carriers Verizon and AT&T if it continues to make improvements in these regions, such as New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Houston, Seattle and Las Vegas.

Overall, Verizon and AT&T continue to offer the best network coverage and reliability nationwide, but T-Mobile and Sprint are stepping up the competition with continued improvements. The full RootMetrics report provides a comprehensive look at all four major carriers in the United States.

Article Link: Sprint and T-Mobile Make Improvements in 2014, but Continue to Trail Verizon and AT&T in Performance

 

[nouveau-apple]

Go go T-Mobile you can do it!

 

[CEmajr]

They are getting closer and closer.

Looks like Sprint improved in call reliability a lot but data speeds remain their achilles' heel. T-Mobile has the great data speeds but of course needs to finish addressing their rural data coverage issues.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Huh. When I checked last year I had found charts showing AT&T edging out Verizon.

 

[DougTheImpaler]

T-Mo and Sprint gotta at least offer enough data along the interstate outside of major cities to download navigation data before I consider switching back. I hate how much I give Verizon, but it's a necessary evil. I'd love to save money and give some of it to T-Mo again. But if I can't get where I'm going, I can't have the service.

The 600MHz spectrum auction later this year will help, and so will the 700MHz they acquired from Verizon. They just need to implement it.

 

[CEmajr]

Huh. When I checked last year I had found charts showing AT&T edging out Verizon.

Not sure what charts you were looking at. Verizon has always been in 1st place overall since they started doing the nationwide comparisons. Due to their rural coverage they win almost every state.

 

[anek007]

Verizon has good coverage but att has the speed.

 

[2457282]

They are getting closer, but in the two break out charts for reliability and speed, there is still a significant gap, especially in speed. I am on AT&T and always thinking of jumping. However, they keep staying competitive (not ahead of the pack like Tmob, but in the pack for sure). Given that and the speed and reliability being way better than tmob and sprint, I keep sticking with them. I never liked Verizon becasue their technology did not let me talk and surf at the same time. Finally with LTE I think that has changed, but they tend to be the most expensive of the group. So for me AT&T is the sweet spot. Not perfect, but given everything, it works the best for me.

 

[KdParker]

Verizon has good coverage but att has the speed.

Depends on where you are located. Verizon has better coverage and is faster than ATT in my area.

 

[malexandria]

ATT Awful

ATT is Awful, almost never works when I really need it to. I only get LTE about 10 or 15% of the time in the North East and usually only 2 bars and it's extremely rare that I get LTE when I'm outside of my region. I really would like to know where people live where the service is so great. I've had it for 8 yrs strictly because they at least get the bill correct every month - which is something Verizon never did (not only was Verizon awful, but they screwed me on my bill to the tune of hundreds of dollars nearly every few months).

 

[J. Jizzle]

WHAT!? Sprint is actually beating T-Mobile in Overall Performance & Reliability??? I thought Sprint would be dead last in every category. I'm actually shocked about this.

 

[avanpelt]

T-Mobile ranks worse than Sprint (at least in this benchmark)? That's saying something. Legere is a charismatic guy who has some good ideas, no question about that. But his company still has a ton of work to get done and the other carriers aren't sitting still.

Just for giggles, I went to the T-Mobile site just to take another look at their LTE coverage in my region to see if it's gotten any better. Nope. I live in Metro Atlanta; and as long as I stay within 50 miles of home, I'd pretty much always have LTE coverage with T-Mo.

However, we usually drive to Florida a couple of times a year. Guess what? Once you leave the southern suburbs of Atlanta heading south on I-75, you lose LTE until you get to Macon (a distance of 50 miles). Then you lose it again once you leave Macon until you get to Valdosta (a distance of 120 miles).

Put simply, T-Mobile's LTE coverage map in my region looks like a Verizon or AT&T coverage map from 1995 (i.e. you're covered near bigger cities but beyond that, forget it). According to T-Mobile's own map, more than half the state of Georgia outside of Metro Atlanta has 2G coverage on T-Mobile. Yeah.

T-Mobile might have attractive pricing; but I'd rather pay a price premium with Verizon and have LTE 99% of the time regardless of where I go as opposed to saving $20 or $30 bucks a month for "unlimited" data on T-Mobile only to have my phone drop to 2G when I have to drive outside of a metro area. Unlimited 2G data is not even worth $20 a month, in my opinion.

 

[Fanaticalism]

They are getting closer, but in the two break out charts for reliability and speed, there is still a significant gap, especially in speed. I am on AT&T and always thinking of jumping. However, they keep staying competitive (not ahead of the pack like Tmob, but in the pack for sure). Given that and the speed and reliability being way better than tmob and sprint, I keep sticking with them. I never liked Verizon becasue their technology did not let me talk and surf at the same time. Finally with LTE I think that has changed, but they tend to be the most expensive of the group. So for me AT&T is the sweet spot. Not perfect, but given everything, it works the best for me.

Verizon is cheaper than Att and has been for almost 8 months. This includes rate plans and device installments. Att just continues to charge above msrp for devices. I

am not a happy Att customer ATM but we all have unlimited data so we stay put.

 

[nutmac]

T-Mo and Sprint gotta at least offer enough data along the interstate outside of major cities to download navigation data before I consider switching back. I hate how much I give Verizon, but it's a necessary evil. I'd love to save money and give some of it to T-Mo again. But if I can't get where I'm going, I can't have the service.

Agreed. T-Mobile's data coverage along widely traveled I-5 in California is atrocious, with large blocks between Sacramento and Bakersfield either without any data coverage or at best EDGE.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Verizon is cheaper than Att and has been for almost 8 months. This includes rate plans and device installments. Att just continues to charge above msrp for devices. I

am not a happy Att customer ATM but we all have unlimited data so we stay put.

I just changed carriers, and did a lot of price comparisons. For a family plan with 5 lines and needing 10-15GB of data, there was no way Verizon would be cheaper, not under any plan, program, or publicly available promotion.

 

[FoxyKaye]

Go go T-Mobile you can do it!

I generally refer to T-Mobile as the, "You Get What You Pay For, Punk!" network. But I do have a sweetheart Unlimited plan and pricing from the Nexus One days that transferred over to my iPhone. And lots of hope. So, does this mean that T-Mobile is the Obama '08 campaign of cellular providers?

 

[neuropsychguy]

WHAT!? Sprint is actually beating T-Mobile in Overall Performance & Reliability??? I thought Sprint would be dead last in every category. I'm actually shocked about this.

I'm surprised too. I've used both networks and hands down T-Mobile has been way better in many locations around the country. I've known many people who've switched from Sprint (some within the past year) because of problems. T-Mobile has its limitations but they've been vastly better than Sprint. Yes, this is just anecdotal evidence but I've heard a lot along these lines.

I use T-Mobile and deal with their limited coverage but most of the time, I get good, fast connections. Plus, my unlimited talk, text, 1GB only costs me about $21 per month. If any of the other carriers could approach that price, I'd consider switching (except for Sprint), but what I get for what I pay is unmatched.

 

[2457282]

Verizon is cheaper than Att and has been for almost 8 months. This includes rate plans and device installments. Att just continues to charge above msrp for devices. I

am not a happy Att customer ATM but we all have unlimited data so we stay put.

Not sure how you are comparing. Especially when multiple individual unlimited lines is more expensive than moving to a family share plan. If you are paying more on AT&T, you should move to a family plan. I did this a couple of years ago when the plans came out and have been very happy and saving money.

 

[bushman4]

On these evaluations, it depends where you are.for reliability and data speed. So these stats don't show anything. Not even bragging rights for the companies

 

[LordBeelzebub]

I used to have good service with ATT here in Springfield, IL. Until about 4 years ago they did something and my service was sketchky. I no longer had good enough signal strength to stream Slacker Radio, couldn't web browse on my phone, sometimes even text wouldn't send, and this is while working right down town. It was time for an upgrade so I got a new phone thinking maybe an antenna in my previous phone had issues. No such luck, same poor reception issues with the new phone.

I got fed up paying for data I essentially couldn't use, so a year and a half ago I switch to Verizon and absolutely LOVE my service. 50Mbps down, 20Mbps up and everywhere I travel I virtually always get LTE.

I realize coverage is different for everybody depending on where you live, but I will never go back to ATT, and T-Mobile and Sprint not even a consideration.

 

[TWSS37]

This is very YMMV. I just switched from VZW to TMO and went from data speeds on VZW around 7-10 mbps, and TMO is between 35-40.

 

[CEmajr]

T-Mobile ranks worse than Sprint (at least in this benchmark)? That's saying something. Legere is a charismatic guy who has some good ideas, no question about that. But his company still has a ton of work to get done and the other carriers aren't sitting still.

Just for giggles, I went to the T-Mobile site just to take another look at their LTE coverage in my region to see if it's gotten any better. Nope. I live in Metro Atlanta; and as long as I stay within 50 miles of home, I'd pretty much always have LTE coverage with T-Mo.

However, we usually drive to Florida a couple of times a year. Guess what? Once you leave the southern suburbs of Atlanta heading south on I-75, you lose LTE until you get to Macon (a distance of 50 miles). Then you lose it again once you leave Macon until you get to Valdosta (a distance of 120 miles).

Put simply, T-Mobile's LTE coverage map in my region looks like a Verizon or AT&T coverage map from 1995 (i.e. you're covered near bigger cities but beyond that, forget it). According to T-Mobile's own map, more than half the state of Georgia outside of Metro Atlanta has 2G coverage on T-Mobile. Yeah.

T-Mobile might have attractive pricing; but I'd rather pay a price premium with Verizon and have LTE 99% of the time regardless of where I go as opposed to saving $20 or $30 bucks a month for "unlimited" data on T-Mobile only to have my phone drop to 2G when I have to drive outside of a metro area. Unlimited 2G data is not even worth $20 a month, in my opinion.

Not sure which coverage maps you were looking at (the green ones from 2012 perhaps?) but according to the ones on their site the area you're complaining about is pretty much all LTE. Here it is from Atlanta to Macon and Macon to Valdosta. In fact I-75 looks like a near full LTE experience from Atlanta to Miami. They've definitely improved. Nice try though...

 

[Westside guy]

Unless you travel a lot, the overall picture doesn't matter - what matters is how they perform in the area you live.

My experience with side by side T-Mobile and Verizon devices in the Puget sound area was Verizon's data coverage was bad in the same places T-Mobile's was bad. On the train, they would both drop in the same places. In the city, they were both good. So day to day there's no good reason for me to pay more for the same level of service.

I do keep a Verizon network iPad around specifically for traveling. Once a year I find it useful to buy a one month plan. That's the one good thing about them - they do have at least some level of coverage even out in the boondocks.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Not sure which coverage maps you were looking at (the green ones from 2012 perhaps?) but according to the ones on their site the area you're complaining about is pretty much all LTE. Here it is from Atlanta to Macon and Macon to Valdosta. In fact I-75 looks like a near full LTE experience from Atlanta to Miami. They've definitely improved.

I drop out of LTE a number of times on I75 in Florida. T-Mobile's coverage map is generous and doesn't necessarily represent actual service. For the most part it's okay but I've been in a number of areas of "coverage" (generally a little more rural but some were in sizable cities) and had no signal, not even for voice calls.

 

[C DM]

I just changed carriers, and did a lot of price comparisons. For a family plan with 5 lines and needing 10-15GB of data, there was no way Verizon would be cheaper, not under any plan, program, or publicly available promotion.

Interesting...up until a few days ago for a period of at least a few months Verizon was offering 10 GB for just $80/month and 15 GB for $100/month, which seems to be cheaper.