In testing 3G and 4G across the continental USA, we wanted to do things differently from the competition, with more cities and more controlblanketing as many places as we could with tests of our own design.
We didn't test voice quality, dropped calls, or coverage areas; while those are very important measurements, these tests were all about mobile Internet. We ran approximately 1,000 rounds of tests (totaling more than 10,000 individual tests) in 20 cities. We had to throw out two cities, Las Vegas and Philadelphia, because of technical problems, but overall our testing produced consistent, repeatable results. Two of our networks, Sprint 4G and Cricket, weren't available in all the cities we tested. That made them ineligible for regional and national awards, though we rated them for the individual cities they served.
