SerpApi.Org
Over the last week, the research firms that regularly test wireless network performance released three new reports ranking performance on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. And, once again, they’re not all on the same wavelength.
First, RootMetrics awarded a first-place tie to AT&T and Verizon in that Ookla-owned firm’s State of the Mobile Union report covering the first half of 2026. Then, T-Mobile took top honors in Opensignal’s Mobile Network Experience Report, covering the second quarter of the year, as well as Ookla’s Speedtest Connectivity Report, based on data from the first half of 2026.
(Yes, the Ookla that owns Speedtest and the Ookla that owns RootMetrics are the same company. Accenture completed its acquisition of Ookla and the outage-reporting service Downdetector from PCMag’s parent firm Ziff Davis earlier this year.)
With RootMetrics, scores in the key categories of overall performance and reliability placed AT&T and Verizon a few points ahead of T-Mobile across the 0-to-100 range. Big Blue almost tied Big Red in the first metric, 98.3 and 98.4, and tied it in reliability at 98.8 each.
But AT&T tied T-Mobile in the speed category at 99.1. That score, however, doesn’t just factor in median downloads, which its tests clocked at 392Mbps for T-Mobile, 302Mbps for Verizon, and 228.7Mbps for AT&T, and instead folds in other measurements to yield a “holistic look at speed performance.”
At Opensignal, T-Mobile trounced AT&T and Verizon by winning 12 of its 16 categories: reliability, consistent quality, download speed, 5G download, upload speed, 5G upload, 5G coverage, 5G availability, video, live video, games, and 5G games. Verizon took first place in coverage, 5G video, and 5G live video, while AT&T’s sole such honor was for “time on network,” another measure of reliability.
Opensignal reported slower “typical everyday” download speeds than RootMetrics, but found a wider lead for T-Mobile: 192.5Mbps versus 96Mbps for AT&T and 89.4Mbps for Verizon.
Speedtest’s report also featured a majority of magenta, with T-Mobile leading in its best mobile network, fastest mobile network, most consistent network, best 5G availability, video experience, gaming experience, and consumer sentiment scores.
(T-Mobile’s recent consumer-hostile trick of shoving many longstanding customers into newer and more expensive plans happened in the dying days of June, so that sentiment score should barely reflect any blowback from that.)
Verizon, however, had a clear lead in best mobile coverage, with AT&T in second place. The report quotes a median download speed of 275.55Mbps for T-Mobile but doesn’t include the same stat for its two nationwide rivals.
Drive Tests vs. App Data
The biggest reason why these surveys didn’t come to the same conclusion is that they didn’t start from the same point or take the same route from there.
RootMetrics’ methodology relies on orchestrated drive testing using unmodified Android phones, an approach that yielded more than 3 million tests (6,900-plus indoors) over more than 243,000 miles driven during the most recent test period.
Opensignal and Speedtest, meanwhile, collect data from apps on individual consumers’ devices; the former relies both on its own apps and “a series of carefully selected partner apps,” while the latter’s eponymous app is one of the most widely used network-testing tools.
Each network research shop also provides some information that the others don’t. The RootMetrics and Speedtest reports include state- and city-specific data, while Opensignal’s app shows multiple-carrier coverage maps in specific locations.
AT&T Nabs a Win on Fixed Broadband
Speedtest’s report also provides data on five fixed-broadband services: AT&T Fiber, Charter’s Spectrum, Comcast’s Xfinity, Cox (which Charter is seeking to buy), and Verizon. This part of the report puts AT&T’s fiber-optic offering ahead of its rivals in the categories of best internet, fastest fixed network, most consistent network, video experience, and consumer network; Verizon, however, edged out the others in gaming experience.
But like previous Speedtest assessments of fixed broadband, this one favors AT&T by looking only at its fiber broadband, which offers connections as fast as 5Gbps, to the exclusion of its fixed-wireless Internet Air service and other, slower products.
Verizon’s score, meanwhile, lumps its fast Fios fiber broadband with its slower but more widely available 5G fixed wireless access. In the same way, data for the cable operators Charter, Cox, and Comcast includes their far smaller fiber networks.
This report also entirely omits T-Mobile’s fixed-wireless home 5G, even as that carrier projects it could reach 13 to 16 million subscribers for it by 2030.
In PCMag's recent ranking of the best ISPs, Starlink and Spectrum were the big winners.
Finally, Ookla’s publication amounts to the most info-dense read, thanks to the “Deep Dive” at its end from lead industry analyst Mike Dano. Dano (a former editor of mine at multiple telecom trade publications) ticks off such recent network developments as AT&T’s activation of spectrum purchased from the former regional carrier UScellular offset by a slow deployment of higher-capacity “standalone 5G”; Verizon further widening its use of fast C-band spectrum and speed-boosting carrier aggregation, formerly an advantage T-Mobile had to itself; and T-Mobile finally starting to light up its own C-band while continuing to find extremely low usage of T-Satellite roaming via Starlink.
