Verizon this week basked in the glory of operating the best performing network in the U.S., according to third-party testing, while its smaller rivals did their best to talk up their own assets and in one case question the validity of the test itself.
The telco came top in Rootmetrics’ latest survey of mobile networks in the U.S., its overall performance giving it a score of 94.5 out of a possible 100. AT&T came in second with 91.8 points, while arch-rivals Sprint and T-Mobile US ranked third and fourth respectively with 87.5 and 82 points.
Verizon was top of the pile nationally in four out of five categories: network reliability, network speed, data performance and call performance. AT&T topped the final category, text performance.
At state level, Verizon came top or tied for first place in 47 out of 50 states, while AT&T won or tied in 12. Neither Sprint nor T-Mobile won or shared any state awards.
"Some of our competitors who seem to make the most noise about performance didn’t even win a single state," said Verizon’s chief network officer Nicki Palmer in a video on the operator’s Website.
"A lot of them rely solely on crowd-sourced, arbitrary testing to back up their [own performance] claims," she said.
We didn’t have to listen too hard for evidence of the noise Pa lmer was talking about.
"I get that you’re proud of this bullshit, antiquated report, @marceloclaure – but you still came in 4th," T-Mobile CEO John Legere declared on Twitter, referring to the fact that his company beat Sprint in net customer additions in the most recent quarter, pushing it into fourth place in the U.S. mobile market.
Legere’s comment came after Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure also used Twitter to goad his rival about coming last in the Rootmetrics report.
In particular, Claure talked up Sprint’s showing in the call performance category, where it effectively tied for second place with AT&T, scoring 88.3 to the latter’s 88.7, while T-Mobile was some way behind at 75.1.
"In most categories, Sprint’s scores showed progress in terms of closing the gap with the leaders," Rootmetrics said in its commentary to the results.
Legere, meanwhile, went on to further denigrate the Rootmetrics report, claiming that the firm’s testers "get paid by carriers to test networks on a single old-generation phone."
"A little road trip is not an accurate network study," he insisted. "We trust crowd-sourced info with real cust[omer] results."
Amidst all the drama, AT&T remained mercifully silent.
"Don’t overlook AT&T…Although Verizon led the way in the majority of categories at the national level, AT&T wasn’t far behind," Rootmetrics said.
"Verizon’s performance across our testing of the United States was excellent," it added. "Verizon earned bragging rights for the fourth consecutive time as winner of the United States RootScore Award for Overall Performance."
To be completely fair to T-Mobile, Rootmetrics noted that it performed well in multiple categories in metro areas, showing improved data reliability and fast network speeds.
"T-Mobile typically performs much better in metro areas than it does at state or nationa l levels, and this was indeed the case in the first half of 2015," the firm said.
"If you primarily use your smartphone in a major urban environment, T-Mobile remains a solid choice," Rootmetrics said, but warned that the telco "lacks the broad coverage" to excel either nationally or at state level.
