What you need to know
- AT&T tops Ookla's Fastest Providers chart with a speed score of 41.23 in front of T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon.
- AT&T had the top score for 5G capable devices followed by T-Mobile.
- T-Mobile has 5,008 of the 5,165 commercially available 5G deployments.
In a report released on July 8, 2020 Ookla found AT&T to be the fastest mobile provider in the U.S. with a Speed Score of 41.23. This score is a combination of download and upload speeds with greater importance placed on downloads. AT&T held a comfortable lead over the rest with T-Mobile and Sprint coming in second and third with 33.69 and 31.53. Verizon isn't far behind Sprint with 30.77.
AT&T and T-Mobile hold the top position for speeds over 5Mbps with 79.7% and 79.2%. Verizon fell behind at 73.8% and Sprint is much further behind at 66.1%. Ookla notes that while T-Mobile and Sprint are currently in a merger, it will report the two carriers separately until the network is fully integrated.
Verizon claws a win back with a 5G score of 870.50 far ahead of AT&T with 78.68. While this seems impressive, Verizon's 5G deployment is far behind AT&T and especially T-Mobile in coverage. Ookla notes that there are 5,165 deployments and 5,008 of these belong to T-Mobile while AT&T has 355 of these deployments. Verizon has only 39 in this report.
In another 5G related test, Ookla recorded an average score for 5G capable devices that combines 5G and LTE results. AT&T once again topped this list with a 57.52 far outpacing every other carrier.
