Mobile ties Verizon for LTE speed supremacy in latest OpenSignal report

But if you are looking for the carrier with the best 3G and 4G download speeds, look no further than T-Mobile, according to a report from OpenSignal. Magenta posted an average speed of 3.5Mbps as opposed to AT&T’s 2.2Mbps with Verizon and Sprint posting a very unimpressive 0.66Mbps and 0.64Mbps respectively.

Verizon had an average download speed over LTE of 12 Mbps and T-Mobile just beat them with an average download speed of 12.3 Mbps.

In OpenSignal’s testing, both Verizon and T-Mobile are getting 4G speeds of 12 Mbps on average, against the national 4G average speed of 9.9 Mbps.

Verizon is still the LTE king among USA mobile carriers, but T-Mobile wants to be the heir apparent. The two carriers tied in Atlanta, San Francisco, and Washington, and there was a four-way tie between all the carriers in Houston.

“T-Mobile’s LTE coverage increased [from 78 percent in previous months] to 81 percent in the fourth quarter”, the report said.

The new report, which is based on data collected from regular consumer smartphones that have downloaded the OpenSignal app, shows that Verizon’s coverage is still king with consumers able to access LTE coverage almost 87 percent of the time. “Crossing the 80% coverage barrier is something only seven other countries have achieved”, according to OpenSignal. The country was at an average download speed of 9.9 Mbps in Q4, compared to 13.5 Mbps worldwide.

Sprint also downplayed the difference in speed that OpenSignal found between Sprint and the other carriers, saying it just means consumers have to wait a little bit longer for downloads.

“We’ll keep working hard to provide the best experience for our customers, but we also know that network performance differences are often indiscernible to most customers in most markets”, Sprint told Ars.

OpenSignal said the transition to Voice over LTE services is one way the US can solve its 4G capacity problems and pointed to T-Mobile’s recent speed gains as evidence that spectrum from 2G networks can be put to use to give LTE a boost.