A nationwide survey of wireless-network performance based on more than 3 million tests gave its top honors to Verizon, but not much separates that firm from its rivals, AT&T and T-Mobile.
The latest State of the Mobile Union report from Ookla’s RootMetrics, released Monday, credits Verizon for having the best overall performance, reliability, responsiveness, and data and video performance. That carrier and AT&T, however, tie on call and text performance, while AT&T and T-Mobile tie for network speed.
(Credit: RootMetrics)
The differences in the “RootScores” calculated from performance data gathered via millions of automated tests with Android phones—including more than 246,000 miles of drive testing—are tiny in most categories. For example, in the overall category, only 1.5 points separate T-Mobile’s 96.7 and Verizon’s 98.2, with AT&T in the top third of that spread at 97.9. In reliability, Verizon barely edged out AT&T, 98.7 to 98.6, with T-Mobile at 97.
In calling and texting performance, however, T-Mobile trailed by a wider gap. Its 92.4 RootScore for call performance was significantly short of the tie figure of 97.1 for AT&T and Verizon, while its 96.4 text-performance score fell not as far behind AT&T’s 98.8 and Verizon’s 99.2.
(RootMetrics judged those last two numbers as a tie, spokeswoman Raquel Sanz explained in an email, because it employs a statistical-analysis method to determine if “the observed performance difference between two carriers is meaningfully different or effectively equivalent.”)
The single biggest variance in RootMetrics performance data came in the non-hybrid metric of median download speed, where T-Mobile’s 374.5Mbps easily outpaced Verizon’s 226.5Mbps and AT&T’s 193Mbps. The last two figures reflected substantial improvement over last year’s data.
But in the context of on-phone performance (as separate from lending that mobile broadband to a laptop via a phone’s mobile-hotspot mode), all three provide service much faster than the 100Mbps that we consider more than adequate in a home broadband connection. As RootMetrics analyst Mike Dano noted in the report: “At speeds above 100Mbps, AT&T users should be able to handle any typical mobile activity with ease.”
These download speeds also reflect the immense difference that fast mid-band 5G—AT&T and Verizon’s C-band and T-Mobile’s 2.5 GHz—has made to the mobile experience in recent years.
Five years ago, RootMetrics didn’t find T-Mobile exceeding 50Mbps in any market studied. But even compared to the year-ago version of this study, there’s serious progress: Dano observed that nationwide median download speeds across all three carriers went from 212Mbps in the 2024 second-half report to 276Mbps today.
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Slow and Steady Network Improvements
The rest of the report from RootMetrics, a subsidiary of Speedtest developer Ookla, includes useful details about network upgrades at each of the big three carriers.
At AT&T, it notes that the carrier’s recent activation of standalone 5G—a network-architecture shift that should yield faster and more responsive connections—did not surface in any of its tests. Dano said over email that the surveying from July to December required testing in different cities and different times, which could lead to it missing “SA” 5G from AT&T.
RootMetrics did, however, pick up early deployments of the 3.45GHz midband spectrum that AT&T acquired from EchoStar last summer and also saw improved performance in markets where AT&T has completed a switch from Nokia to Ericsson network gear.
Standalone 5G was nearly universal at T-Mobile, as you’d expect from a deployment that began in 2020. RootMetrics also found T-Mo far ahead in using carrier aggregation to boost 5G speeds, detecting that enhancement in a bit over two-thirds of the T-Mobile network samples.
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But another T-Mobile network project, integrating the spectrum it purchased from UScellular last summer, did not show up in RootMetrics data this time. Explained Dano: “It’s still early days as T-Mobile fully integrates all of the assets it purchased from UScellular into its operations.”
As for Verizon, RootMetrics found a standalone 5G rollout that that has advanced impressively to show up in almost 60% of its metro-area tests as well as efficiency upgrades from deploying such advances as MIMO (multiple input multiple output) antenna bonding and Sounding Reference Signal beamforming.
The study also found that Verizon’s millimeter-wave 5G—originally the focus of its 5G sales pitch—continues to deliver outstanding speeds where it’s available, with peak observed speeds in urban areas of 5.49Gbps in the fourth quarter of 2025. Dano said that RootMetrics also saw AT&T and T-Mobile mmWave pop up in its data, adding that the company plans a separate look at mmWave performance “in the near future.”
Asked for a prediction, Dano professed optimism about carriers’ continued willingness to put money into improving their networks. “It’s clear that operators continue to invest in expanding and enhancing their networks,” he wrote. “This upward progress will likely continue, particularly in the more rural areas covered by the study.”
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company.
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