T-Cellular US wins most of Opensignal’s community expertise awards in its most up-to-date take a look at evaluation
As T-Cellular US heralded its new Greatest Community award from Ookla, Opensignal’s new cell community expertise report for June additional confirmed that the Magenta community is a dominant pressure—together with in reliability. However Verizon and AT&T additionally had some notable constructive outcomes.
The Opensignal report analyzed cell community efficiency over a three-month interval from February to Might 2025.
Within the earlier spherical of Opensignal’s evaluation, T-Cellular US shared the reliability award with Verizon. T-Mo has now tipped into profitable the award outright and repeated a win for constant community high quality as properly.
As well as, T-Cellular US additionally racked up awards in 5G protection, total video expertise, gaming expertise and dwell video expertise, plus total and 5G-specific obtain speeds—the place it blew away Verizon and AT&T by almost 120 Mbps in total obtain speeds and by greater than 80 Mbps simply in 5G obtain speeds.
Nonetheless, Opensignal did word that whereas T-Mo’s lead over runner-up Verizon is all of 83 Mbps, the hole between them is reducing somewhat than growing. Because the earlier report, T-Cellular US’ obtain speeds gained 14 Mbps, however Verizon gained 33 Mbps.
Verizon gained a number of 5G-specific awards apart from obtain pace, staking claims on 5G video and 5G dwell video expertise, 5G gaming and 5G add speeds.
AT&T, in the meantime, was the outright winner of simply one among Opensignal’s awards: availability, which calculates the proportion of time that Opensignal customers on the AT&T community had both a 3G, 4G or 5G connection. (Opensignal notes in its methodology that almost all availability metrics are collected indoors, as a result of that’s the place customers are likely to run into points with not with the ability to connect with the mobile community.)
Right here’s a visible abstract of the outcomes from Opensignal:
UScellular has slower speeds however good video expertise for customers
Within the markets the place service from UScellular was obtainable, Opensignal additionally appeared on the relative efficiency of that operator—which is within the technique of being acquired by T-Cellular US. So, if the merger will get approval, how does the UScellular community measure as much as the larger T-Mo community?
In Opensignal’s evaluation, UScellular tended to lag properly behind the opposite operators in obtain speeds, however got here nearer on add speeds. It distinguished itself notably properly in total video expertise in a lot of states: Iowa, Maine and Wisconsin. And relating to 5G protection, the UScellular community would possibly assist fill some gaps for T-Cellular: When Ookla checked out 5G protection and availability metrics, UScellular was a standout in Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. (Be aware: On the state degree, T-Cellular US tended to dominate within the 5G protection class, Verizon in total protection and AT&T in 5G availability.)
UScellular additionally clocked aggressive 5G leads to California, operating neck-and-neck with T-Cellular US’ community in 5G video expertise and 5G dwell video expertise. It’s 5G obtain speeds fell considerably behind the three nationwide carriers in California, although, clocking in at 111.3 Mbps in comparison with AT&T at 162 Mbps, Verizon at 177 Mbps and T-Cellular US at a blazing 253.7 Mbps.
At an occasion earlier this week, T-Cellular US executives credited its spectrum place, 5G Standalone roll-out and its tower rely as the explanations for its community enhancements which were years within the making, most not too long ago confirmed with Ookla’s Greatest Community award.
If the merger is accredited, UScellular will shift its focus to being an infrastructure supplier somewhat than a cell community operator. T-Cellular US plans to buy about 30% of UScellular’s spectrum outright and enter right into a long-term lease for no less than 2,000 UScellular-owned towers, along with the 600 websites on which it’s already a tenant. Moreover, for as much as one yr after the transaction closes, T-Mo will lease further spectrum that’s already in use in UScellular’s community, to assist clean the transition for purchasers. UScellular has stated that it plans to “opportunistically monetize its remaining spectrum property.”
T-mobile US COO Srini Gopalan stated this week that because of the community density that T-Cellular US has, plus its spectrum holdings and its community know-how decisions, T-Cellular US has a community lead of “ two years” on Verizon and AT&T. “That lead is just going to develop. That is solely going to get higher,” he added.
Whereas T-Cellular US has emphasised its “layer cake” spectrum method for years, Gopalan identified that inside the completely different spectrum sorts, T-Cellular US has put collectively a very advantageous spectrum place—not solely within the quantity of spectrum that it has, however within the relative place of its holdings in comparison with different operators. Within the low-band airwaves, for instance, T-Cellular US has 600 MHz in comparison with different carriers’ 700 MHz and 850 MHz. Within the midband, it purchased Dash’s wealth of two.5 GHz, whereas AT&T and Verizon are counting on the C-Band spectrum at 3.7 GHz.
T-Mo additionally spotlighted its T-Satellite tv for pc Non-Terrestrial Community (NTN) service in partnership with LEO supplier Starlink, which has been in beta mode since early this yr however will formally change to a industrial service as of July 23. Learn extra particulars on the teachings realized from the beta service right here.
