FASTEST MOBILE NETWORKS 2021

It’s T-Mobile’s year at last. T-Mobile’s new mid-band 5G network is the only nationwide 5G that’s markedly faster than 4G, earning the carrier its first-ever PCMag award for America’s fastest mobile network.

- SASCHA SEGAN

In our 12th annual test, our drivers traveled a total of 10,626 miles, surveying 30 major US metro areas and six rural regions to find out the state of 5G from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. T-Mobile took a commanding lead in 5G, winning 24 cities and rural regions to AT&T’s eight and Verizon’s two; we also saw one tie between T-Mobile and Verizon and one tie between T-Mobile and AT&T.

Why go to all this effort? Because people need to choose smartphones and carriers, and the best choice for you depends heavily on where you are.

Almost every adult American now has a smartphone. According to Statista, there were just about 294 million smartphone users in the US in 2020; for comparison, that year, the US Census estimates there were 258 million adults in the country.

All of those phones have to connect to networks. Since the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, we now have three giant players in the US. All of them are slapping up billboards promoting their 4G and 5G networks with words like “biggest,” “fastest,” and “most reliable.” Back in 2010, as smartphones started to become popular, we began our independent gauge of the mobile networks to help people choose carriers based on facts, not ads.

Since then, plenty of other tests and awards have cropped up. They all have their advantages. Ours are consistency and transparency. We use the same devices, in the same places, at the same times, to make sure the network is the only difference. Then we tell you exactly where we go to run our tests, down to the neighborhood, and what we did there. Sometimes we even tell you what we had for dinner. We want to help you make a carrier choice you feel confident about, based on solid local data.