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Verizon Named 2018's Fastest Mobile Network in PCMag's Annual Carrier Showdown

MacDawg said:
Speed is just one component of consideration for me
The most important is coverage and availability
AT&T has been good for me overall and I don't have any speed issues
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Agreed 100%. While T-Mobile may be faster than AT&T, their coverage is nowhere nearly as extensive. Verizon is, undoubtedly, the top dog, but it would cost me around $60 a month more for plan comparable to the one I currently have with AT&T.
 
tzm41 said:
Different bands penetrate buildings differently. T-Mobile has hardly deployed their acquired lower frequency bands yet, yielding a poorer indoor experience.
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They have Band 71 600 MHz deployed in 900+ cities and towns currently, and Band 12 is widely deployed across the USA.
 
This comes up every year. Yet statuses have not changed. East part of south florida does well with Tmobile and sprint with good speeds. Soon as you are on turnpike or alligator alley, Tmobile is at "no service" for hours, including any major department stores. This hasn't changed since 09.

However if you are out in the open near the beaches Tmobile can reach 80-100mbps. Then you walk in to grab a sub and you are at 0.
 
I started off with Sprint many years ago and switched over to Verizon and never looked back. With that said, it now about which carriers provides the best service and technology and which phones can optimize it. So Apple, how about talking more about performance enhancements with talk, text and internet service instead of Animojis like it's the greatest thing since slice bread?
 
zubikov said:
Another reminder that Sprint is terrible. If you find yourself asking "is Sprint really that bad?", the answer is "Yes". I constantly find myself scrambling for coverage in very densely populated areas. Looking into switching to either Verizon or Tmobile in a few months.

Let's face it, T-mobile and Verizon are neck in neck. As long as you have coverage in all of your traveled locations and have actual LTE, according to these results you're going to have a good experience with either of the top two carriers.
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I switched to Sprint from Verizon a couple of years ago yes it is slower but it is fine 99% of the time for what I need and most of the time I am at a place that has WIFI.
 
blucable said:
I do not believe those numbers. It may be the fastest network in some busy areas. Anyways, I put an iPhone 6 with AT&T besides 2 iPhone 6S plus with t-mobile and verizon. The AT&T phone had 2 bars and the other 2 phones had full bars. The AT&T phone had a 18Mbps download while the other 2 phones had barely 7Mbps...

Been using AT&T for 11 years now, I am happy with it...
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Yeah I've been thrilled with AT&T's performance also, living here in Philadelphia; and have had AT&T for 15 years. and current Unlimited Data plan for 9 years, when I moved to my first smartphone (iPhone 3GS).

Hhowever - AT&T keeps raising my old-grandfathered Unlimited Plan (used to be $30/month, will be $45/month starting July); so I've been looking at other plans/carrier options. Being that I never really used anything above 5Gb/month, I may even just go Pre-Paid ($40/month for 8gigs on AT&T) or consider Verizon for a post-paid plan ($55/month for 5Gb). Who knows.
 
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Guda.FL said:
This comes up every year. Yet statuses have not changed. East part of south florida does well with Tmobile and sprint with good speeds. Soon as you are on turnpike or alligator alley, Tmobile is at "no service" for hours, including any major department stores. This hasn't changed since 09.

However if you are out in the open near the beaches Tmobile can reach 80-100mbps. Then you walk in to grab a sub and you are at 0.
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Wow that kind of sucks to hear. So T-Mobile has no service in alligator alley or on the turn pike, or even inside local stores?
How has Sprint been doing?
 
Dodgeman said:
Wow that kind of sucks to hear. So T-Mobile has no service in alligator alley or on the turn pike, or even inside local stores?
How has Sprint been doing?
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Soon as you enter and re-enter in Naples the entire drive is pretty much "no service", as of 1.5 years back. Maybe it has improved. Yeah...its very spotty, but in major cities its not bad at all. For example, I have 2 lines, when I enter my office building from garage to office, Tmobile will not have service, verizon and att all the way through. It's little things like this make the experience so so.

Then we go to a patio, s8 tmo runs at 80mbps or higher and my 8plus att is at like 10-15 at most. TBH they all suck lol.

This is all location based, thats why you should only go for a carrier that has superb service where you live and work..not based on national ratings. I've been where Sprint was FAR more superior then others.
 
Craiger said:
Damn, that website is a hot mess.

Also, on a personal note, they didn't test Nashville?
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Also on a personal note, that's why these results always seemed suspect to me. The idea of limiting metro centers per region is noble, but there are a couple of flaws with the way account for where to test and limit the usefulness of the data. One is using the population of the primary city rather than the population of a MSA/CSA. This usually, not not always is a good measure (for example Dallas is by far the biggest city in the Metroplex but in MSP the population of Mpls and St Paul are 450k and 380k respectively, with some suburbs crossing the 100k threshold). So you have statistical outliers like Indy and Tuscon where the city population is about 80% of the population of the MSA/CSA versus MSP (MSA 3x-6x city core, based on who you ask) or Nashville which is closer to 2x.
 
snowboarder said:
I setup my European phone number. I pay $6 (six) per month for unlimited internet/unlimited calls and texts anywhere in Europe. I regularly get 150 MBps download speed on LTE. Pretty incredible how far behind we are...
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What European carrier is that? I’m studying abroad in Switzerland and the best price I have found is $50/month for 3GB data and limited calling and texting outside of Switzerland. I haven’t found any carriers which offer coverage everywhere in a Europe for a reasonable price.
 
I don’t care about speed as much as coverage. Having fast LTE speeds in a city isn’t impressive, it’s a given today.

It’s those times I’m in the middle of nowhere and looking for a gas station or a coffee shop to pull over at, and I have barely enough signal to do a basic POI search in Waze, that matter.
 
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snowboarder said:
I setup my European phone number. I pay $6 (six) per month for unlimited internet/unlimited calls and texts anywhere in Europe. I regularly get 150 MBps download speed on LTE. Pretty incredible how far behind we are...

In the US we pay $120/month for two lines, grandfathered AT&T unlimited iPhone accounts.
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Would you mind sharing with us which European carrier you got this great deal from?
 
oneMadRssn said:
I don’t care about speed as much as coverage. Having fast LTE speeds in a city isn’t impressive, it’s a given today.

It’s those times I’m in the middle of nowhere and looking for a gas station or a coffee shop to pull over at, and I have barely enough signal to do a basic POI search in Waze, that matter.
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Coverage, is what I have confidence in Verizon for. I think att is there as well, but I can always count on Verizon.
 
I7guy said:
Coverage, is what I have confidence in Verizon for. I think att is there as well, but I can always count on Verizon.
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I took a road trip down the west coast, down highway 101 and 1 from Seattle to LA, a few years ago. I had ATT and my then gf had Verizon. There were spots where ATT had a few bars and Verizon had no signal. There were spots where Verizon had a few bars and ATT had no signal. There were spots where neither of them had a signal. From that trip, I can't say that either had more or less gaps in coverage than the other.

I can confidently say that neither of them is even close to perfect though. There were small coastal towns and wine areas, in Washington, Oregon, and California, with people and some tourists driving through and all, where one of the carriers had no signal whatsoever. The notion that Verizon's coverage is so vastly superior and reliable is false. If it's better than any other carrier, it is by a hair - not by a mile.

Don't get me wrong, Verizon is a good cellular carrier. And their marketing department is doing something right if so many people ravigely defend it as having the best coverage. Personally, I don't think the extra cost with Verizon is worth it. If it's coverage is only a hair better than the rest, then their prices should only be a hair higher than the rest. That extra tiny bit of coverage isn't worth a 10-20% premium in cost.
 
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iapplelove said:
And here I am completely satisfied with my 4g LTE AT&T 3rd place speeds lol
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I’m not happy with their coverage. I live in a small city that got LTE converse years ago. Right now I’ve got two bars. When LTE was first out in I’d get 4 - 5 bars. I’m pretty sure it’s not the Phone because my 6s has the same issue before I sold it and bought the X. I live near an expressway and when I’m home it’s 4 - 5 bars.

It’s just strange to me. I’m probably going to dump AT&T and try going the T-Mobile route. If that doesn’t work I’ll probably have no choice but Verizon.
 
Since the AT&T grandfathered account ended, I've been with T-Mobile. In my particular area, usually north L.A./Glendale, I notice no difference. I tried a Sprint in there, but that was ridiculous and I used my 14-day cancellation privilege. So much depends on local factors that I love the price and attitude of T-mobile, and find its speed and so on perfectly good. $70, baby! Plus, Verizon gave us Aijit Pai.
[doublepost=1528826644][/doublepost]Plus, another thing, high speeds on downloads isn't as important on mobile devices as it is on a desktop. Steady connections for streaming, that's what important. And anything steady about 5-10 mbps will let you see good video. I worked late one night and caught up with that night's Game of Thrones as I rode home (in the passenger seat) watching that night's edition on my old iPhone 6. Not a single glitch.
 
To me, mobile speed doesn't matter as much because I'm not doing a lot of crazy data-intensive things on my phone. Especially if I'm using a content blocker pages load several times faster. What matters more is coverage and building penetration.
 
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T-Mobile has been expanding the 600MHz LTE all over the USA.

To take advantage of this the consumer has to be able to receive the 600MHz - apparently only the newest Android phones are capable of doing this.

Inside my house the coverage is spotty, step outside even 2-3m and the bars are 3-4 and calls don't drop; my iPhone is not current. Same story anywhere I travel in LA, ATL, and metro NY, NJ.
 
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