Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc.2019. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. That will, in effect, double Verizon's capacity and network speeds.ĪT&T may be slightly ahead in the speed battle right now, and the strides the company has made in improving network quality are nothing short of remarkable. Wireless companies are constantly upgrading their technology and infrastructure, adding capacity and increasing speeds.īy the time that AT&T's network coverage reaches parity with Verizon's, Big Red will have deployed 4G coverage on a new, giant swath of wireless spectrum that, in part, it recently purchased from a consortium of cable companies.
The problem with measuring network quality is that it's akin to hitting a moving target. Still, network congestion is a major factor that AT&T will likely soon face. Rehbehn notes it's not quite as simple as "more users, slower network." Different speeds also have to do with network plumbing, policy decisions, a company's investment in backhaul, the number of cell sites it has, network capacity, and how effective a company is at deploying new technologies like small cells. "AT&T has to be just tickled pink about all these studies, but this could be a short-term phenomenon," said Ken Rehbehn, a telecommunications analyst at Yankee Group. The same will undoubtedly happen to AT&T's network. As more customers switch to 4G, the slower the network becomes.
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Verizon turned on its 4G network almost a full year before AT&T did, giving it a year's head start to transition customers to the speedier technology. "We've seen a closing of the gap."īefore AT&T customers get too excited - or non-AT&T customers think about jumping ship - there's a catch: AT&T's second-place status in its coverage map might be related to its first-place speed ranking. "Over the past two to three years, we've invested significantly in our network," said Kris Rinne, AT&T's senior vice president of network technologies. AT&T expects that its 4G network will be 90% complete by the end of the year and will essentially match Verizon's coverage by the end of 2014. That's still smaller than Verizon's just-about-completed 4G network, which serves 500 markets and 300 million people, but AT&T is playing an impressive game of catch-up. Ma Bell's 4G-LTE network has expanded to 326 markets, covering more than 200 million Americans. Related story: Why 4G may lead to bigger smartphone bills "It's not just a sprint, it's a decathlon."īut AT&T is quickly improving other aspects of its network too. "Our 4G-LTE network is plenty fast, but it's about more than just speed," said Tom Pica, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. Power and Associates survey ranked Verizon tops in network quality. Latency, signal strength and coverage area can greatly affect customer satisfaction, and the four studies noted that Verizon's network remains consistently more reliable than AT&T in call connections and 4G availability. Speed isn't the only factor in measuring the quality of a network. AT&T was consistently between 4 and 6 Mbps faster than Verizon ( VZ) and T-Mobile's ( TMUS) 4G networks, and was found to double or triple Sprint's ( S) speeds.
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In some cases, those independent studies have shown AT&T reaching download speeds of up to 19 Megabits per second (that's blazingly fast). It does not store any personal data.RootMetrics, Consumer Reports, PCMag, and PCWorld/TechHive have all measured AT&T's 4G-LTE network as the nation's fastest. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
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