- This isn’t your average mobile network benchmark report
- The study by Signals Research Group includes a couple newbies: FirstNet and Dish/Boost
- The winner shares a radio access network with AT&T
Finally, a network benchmark study where the winner is not T-Mobile or Verizon. It’s not even AT&T, which shares a radio access network with the winner.
The star of the latest Signals Research Group (SRG) Dallas-area network benchmark study is none other than FirstNet, the network built specifically for the nation’s public safety users.
The study is unique in several ways – including that it’s counting FirstNet at all. Most mobile network studies center on the consumer-facing brands from AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon and don’t target public safety specifically.
Why include FirstNet? "Because it's interesting and because we could," quipped SRG President Michael Thelander.
And why Dallas? There again, Thelander points to practical reasons. It's an area where test and measurement partner Rohde & Schwarz keeps a regional U.S. office, making it convenient – not to mention cost effective – for them to gather measurements. Plus, it's where SRG conducted two earlier studies, providing a means to compare results year over year.
FirstNet’s first-place finish is especially noteworthy because AT&T provides FirstNet with its radio access network (RAN), meaning the same RAN delivered two different outcomes. However, SRG offers some explanations for all of this.
First of all, FirstNet has a dedicated core network and that plays an important role, Thelander said. Second, the tests used FirstNet-provisioned SIMs, which provide higher quality of service to the phones on the FirstNet network. Third, FirstNet has “quasi-reserved spectrum” in Band 14, which gives it an upper hand on call quality.
Fierce reached out to AT&T for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
FirstNet, Boost inclusion
Besides FirstNet, this is the first time SRG included Dish/Boost Infinite in this Dallas benchmark study. SRG typically doesn't do multi-operator studies, but it's quite possible it will include FirstNet and Dish in subsequent studies, Thelander said. The firm has done testing of the Dish Network on several occasions over the last two years and it's likely to continue to do so.
In 2022, T-Mobile took top honors by a wide margin, entirely driven by its data performance, but in 2021, T-Mobile was the big loser. Thelander suspects that was because T-Mobile was going through a major network upgrade or transition at the time. The top honors in 2021 went to AT&T, whose headquarters are based in Dallas.
Back to this year’s results. In voice quality specifically, FirstNet came out the winner, followed by Verizon, with T-Mobile in third place. Thelander attributes T-Mobile's poor showing in voice to the fact that T-Mobile was still using VoLTE in the Dallas market when Rohde & Schwarz took the measurements in June/July.
T-Mobile has since informed him that it’s now got 5G voice, or VoNR, up and running in Dallas. Fierce reached out to T-Mobile for confirmation but we haven’t heard back.
Thelander also said that if it were not for the voice issue, T-Mobile might have beat FirstNet for first place overall.
As for data, T-Mobile’s data in the Dallas test was delivered via 5G standalone (SA), as was the case for Dish, but in Dish’s case, both voice and data were delivered using 5G SA – and Dish was the only operator in the Dallas area to use VoNR at the time of the tests.
Thelander said he was impressed by the Dish/Boost coverage in the Dallas area. “We had Dish coverage everywhere,” he said. “It was a fairly extensive test area,” suggesting Dish doesn’t need to fall back onto an MVNO partner like AT&T or T-Mobile much in that particular market.
One might speculate that Dish’s overall low scores reflect on Dish’s use of open RAN, but Thelander said doesn’t think that’s the case at all. Other factors were in play, including the core network and potentially transport issues that affected latency. “They weren’t necessarily at the top, but they weren’t laggards there either,” he said.
Verizon & T-Mobile duke it out
Aside from FirstNet’s strong performance – and it bears repeating that its network is for public safety users, not the general consumer population – the big take-away from SRG’s latest report is the near dead heat between T-Mobile and Verizon. T-Mobile has been chasing after Verizon and its legacy “best network” brag for years, buoyed by its Sprint acquisition, which provided the 2.5 GHz gasoline to set its 5G network on fire, so to speak.
T-Mobile has been boasting a lot of third-party 5G network wins, and its overall network performance score in SRG’s Dallas study was one point ahead of Verizon’s. Does that mean Verizon is slipping?
“I wouldn’t call them bad by any means. When I look at Verizon, nothing really stood out as to ‘oh, they really do bad here,’” he said, noting that Verizon had a better voice score than T-Mobile, although he gives T-Mobile a “mulligan on that” since it was still using VoLTE at the time of the tests.
Fuel for the marketing team
These types of reports declaring one carrier better than another continue to make for good marketing fodder for carriers, especially if the methodology is changing, said S&P Global analyst Lynnette Luna.
For example, Ookla’s RootMetrics updated its methodology for a study it did on first-half 2024 performances. Previous awards were based solely on carrier performance in major metropolitan areas, but its new approach incorporates tests in major metro markets as well as rural areas where it does drive testing. Verizon emerged the top 5G performer in 2H 2024, replacing T-Mobile, which won the previous round.
While T-Mobile is on a tear to cover more rural areas with 5G, Verizon historically has performed better than T-Mobile in rural areas. “I think Verizon probably still beats out T-Mobile in more rural areas,” Luna surmised.