I Compared 5g Network Signals Of Verizon, T-mobile, And At&t On A Road Trip - Here's Who Wins

1 day ago

5G awesome testing pinch Google Pixel 10 Pro phones

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

My 5G roadworthy travel tests included rigorous testing connected 3 Google Pixel phones.
Signal reliability mostly proved bully to decent crossed 3 awesome interstate carriers.
Network architecture, including non-standalone 5G, emerged arsenic a facet successful deployment.

5G made a number of promises erstwhile it debuted. The first was nan expertise to grip excessive capacity. I tested that committedness outside a shot playoff crippled this past October, and I recovered it to beryllium partially true. The different committedness was amended sum seashore to coast. Now, it was clip to caput retired and springiness that a try. How 5G could amended sum extracurricular of metropolis centers.

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To do this, I took those aforesaid Google Pixel 10 Pros connected a roadworthy travel crossed nan astir boring road successful America (and, thankfully, a different road home) done nan bulk of cardinal Indiana and Illinois. I besides passed done parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. Since I unrecorded successful Chicago, I person recovered 5G sum to beryllium beautiful great, but what astir erstwhile I time off nan large city?

That's what I wanted to find out. While you were astir apt shopping for immoderate of nan champion Black Friday deals you could find, we were driving for 13 hours from Chicago to Nashville.

How I tested

This clip around, I wanted to trial not only web speed, but wide coverage. So, I took those aforesaid 3 Google Pixel 10 Pros — 1 each pinch an AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile eSIM paper and I attached them to a 2x4 conifer board. I plugged them into an Anker Solix C1000 Gen 2 portable powerfulness station.

Then I loaded up nPerf, which is an app that measures connectivity. There is really a ton of functionality built into this app, but for my purposes, I wanted to get an app that would measurement nan connectivity and spot of a awesome arsenic I drove done nan heartland of nan Midwest. nPerf measures nan location, carrier, awesome strength, and a ton of different useful accusation for web professionals astir 1,500 times per minute.

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The institution graciously provided maine pinch a spreadsheet of each those stats. By nan clip I sewage backmost home, I had complete 120,000 information points to examine. Needless to say, it was beautiful comprehensive.

Also, each hr aliases so, we would propulsion complete astatine nan nearest exit to tally velocity tests. For this, I utilized an iPhone 17 loaded pinch 3 eSIMs, 1 each from nan aforesaid 3 carriers. At nan stop, I mounted nan iPhone connected a tripod, ensuring nan aforesaid positioning for each carrier. I cycled done each 3 carriers, moving velocity tests for each and signaling nan results. All successful all, I had a batch of information to activity with. Some of nan results were surprising, immoderate were not.

The results

As you tin see, speeds were mostly fantabulous for nan astir part. Out of 18 locations, each bearer reached nan azygous digits only twice. They mostly hung astir successful nan double and triple-digit areas, which is to beryllium expected successful this time and age. But there's 1 further facet to consider.

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As we drove, erstwhile we deed nan one-hour mark, we looked for a spot to propulsion off, specified arsenic a remainder extremity aliases a state station. That's fine, but it's besides wherever a batch of group extremity for various reasons. If I were building web coverage, I would attraction connected areas for illustration that to build up first. It's wherever nan group will be. That's why I wanted to trial nan awesome each nan measurement down and each nan measurement back, and that's wherever nPerf steps in.

Let's not hide that carriers person been building 5G networks for complete six years now. What does web sum look for illustration successful betwixt those hotspots?

Standalone 5G vs. Non-standalone

One of nan things that amazed maine was that of nan 3 carriers, only T-Mobile managed immoderate connectivity pinch a non-standalone (NSA) configuration. Non-standalone 5G deployments trust connected existing 4G architecture to thief pinch immoderate of nan basal nuts and bolts of establishing and maintaining a 5G connection. A standalone 5G connection, connected nan different hand, utilizes 5G infrastructure from nan crushed up.

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NSA networks are faster and cheaper to group up because they utilize existing infrastructure; however, SA 5G is considered nan semipermanent solution. The cardinal quality comes successful latency. Since NSA networks utilize 4G to found and support connections, latency tin beryllium affected. The clip this makes nan biggest quality is successful gaming aliases successful distant power applications.

In those cases, latency needs to beryllium arsenic debased arsenic possible. In regular day-to-day kinds of activities, you won't really announcement overmuch of a difference. Still, that metric tin springiness you an thought of what shape of nan 5G rollout nan various carriers are in. So present are nan results:

This floor plan breaks down nan 120,000 information points into 3 cardinal areas: type of web relationship (5G/LTE/etc), basal level of relationship (how galore bars your telephone displayed), and web relationship spot (in dBm -- higher is better).

Overall, T-Mobile appears to person nan astir extended 5G coverage, some successful Non-Standalone and Standalone modes, pinch a sum complaint of 96.2 percent. That's remarkable, considering our car covered complete 1,000 miles connected this trip. All 3 carriers had decent aliases bully awesome spot for complete 80% of nan trip, which is besides really good. AT&T's and Verizon's 5G sum some clocked successful astatine complete 35%, which is good, but not peculiarly impressive.

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All 3 carriers had decent aliases amended awesome spot for complete 90% of nan trip. That's besides very bully considering what I was expecting. The astir eye-popping metrics coming from this travel see Verizon's velocity successful Louisville, Ky, astatine conscionable nether 4GBps down.

As a broadside note, it seems for illustration Verizon ever has astatine slightest 1 eye-popping consequence for illustration that, truthful bully for them. Another peculiarly absorbing stat is T-Mobile's 5G deployment. With numbers for illustration that, it's easy to judge that T-Mobile mightiness person what it calls nan "best nationwide 5G network".

My verdict

All nan same, it's basal to retrieve that I conducted these tests while driving connected Interstates, which are typically congestion-heavy zones. It's worthy repeating, if I were going to build a network, I would astir apt commencement pinch Interstates. If you roadworthy travel on state roads (which whitethorn beryllium nan taxable of an article successful nan future), past nan communicative mightiness beryllium very different.

However, I group retired to trial 5G networks connected a roadworthy trip, which typically involves walking on interstates and stopping astatine state stations on nan way. Overall, it's reassuring to spot that each 3 networks are building appropriately, and sloppy of wherever you find yourself stuck connected nan broadside of nan road, there's a bully chance you'll person a beardown capable awesome to telephone for help.