- T-Mobile execs like to talk about how the “un-carrier” has risen from “challenger” to “champion” in the 5G era
- That mantra may be annoying, but it’s not wrong
- And no, this correspondent is not chugging the magenta Kool-Aid
“Spot moose while relaxing on the deck,” crooned the ad for our cabin in Grand Lake, Colorado, just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. Just my luck, my siblings and I didn’t see a single moose from the steps of that cabin last summer, but we did use that deck to shoot the breeze about wireless cell phone coverage.
Somehow, after exhausting all other topics, the question arose about which cell phone carrier has the best coverage. Not in and around the park, mind you. That’s an entirely different story. No, this was about the broader U.S. geography – and not about satellite coverage, either.
I, of course, piped up and said that if you’re talking strictly about 5G, the answer would be T-Mobile.
The backlash was quick and harsh. No, Verizon has the best network! Oh no! said another. AT&T is the only one with a decent signal where they live.
Everybody’s right and everybody’s wrong – except me, of course. Hear me out. And spoiler alert: This isn’t an endorsement of T-Mobile’s cell phone service. Lord knows they don’t need me singing their praises when they do that so very well (and often) on their own.
The rationale
As much as T-Mobile celebrates its treasure trove of 2.5 GHz spectrum, and deservedly so, it’s T-Mobile’s 600 MHz spectrum that gives it the lead in 5G coverage, as well as a jump on 5G capacity in the rural areas. You know, the whole foundation of the spectrum “layer cake” that former T-Mobile President of Technology Neville Ray liked to talk about.
“Their nationwide average of 600 MHz spectrum is 37 MHz, meaning they primarily have 20 MHz channels deployed with some 15 MHz channels, while AT&T and Verizon have each deployed 5G in a portion of their cellular spectrum (likely 5 MHz channels),” according to Brian Goemmer, president of Spektrum Metrics, via email this week.
That said, it’s T-Mobile’s 2.5 GHz mid-band spectrum that gives it the biggest bang for the buck because it has a lot of it and it got out early with its deployment – far faster and sooner than Verizon and AT&T could do since they had to wait for the C-band auction to transpire and then for that spectrum to be vacated by satellite companies.
Because the C-band – at 3.7-3.98 GHz – is higher on the spectrum range than 2.5 GHz, it’s going to cost Verizon and AT&T more money to reach as many places as T-Mobile can cover with 2.5 GHz. It’s just physics.
It’s worth noting that T-Mobile didn’t buy Sprint for its network assets. Sprint had a crappy network. I know because I used it tried to use it. T-Mobile’s network also sucked for a long time before it bought Sprint. It ended up decommissioning Sprint sites and transitioned parts of its network onto Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum, allowing it to leapfrog its rivals in 5G.
Notice I’m not saying T-Mobile has the best wireless network or the best 4G/5G coverage. That’s a different question and one best left to third parties that study every which way you can measure those things.
But in support of my opinion, I’ll point to this Opensignal report released this week that once again crowned T-Mobile as the U.S. leader in 5G coverage. You can find other third-party reports by Ookla and Root Metrics here and here.
Lest you think I’m cherry-picking third-party reports, I queried some industry analysts as well to see who they deem the U.S. operator with the most 5G coverage.
“I’d say it’s T-Mobile as they have put the Sprint 2.5 and attained 600 to work ahead of VZ and AT&T’s C-band,” said Bill Ho, chief analyst at 556 Ventures. “They are a year or two ahead of Verizon and AT&T.”
Moreover, “they have deployed [standalone] SA, which allows them to offer 5G slicing products, which competitors have yet to offer, I believe. Doing so can give them inroads to enterprise and medium-sized business sectors, which they are scrapping to get more market share,” Ho said.
“The most 5G coverage is T-Mobile,” said Roger Entner of Recon Analytics, speaking with Fierce from Germany. “They have built out 5G, especially in mid band, like fiends.”
Does it even matter?
But who cares? People have been berating 5G like it’s the plague. No one – except I’d argue T-Mobile for all kinds of reasons – is making much bank on 5G. Other than fixed wireless access (FWA), the only real “killer app” from 5G is speed. That only gets you so far on a mobile device.
Besides, most people still think Verizon is the superior network provider. In their most recent survey measuring consumer sentiment in April 2024, TD Cowen analysts found that Verizon remained No. 1 for overall brand/image, beating T-Mobile by a hair and AT&T by a wider margin. But they suspect T-Mobile could take the top brand, for the first time in company history, in the next few quarters.
Inevitably, which carrier is the best boils down to which one provides the best coverage, 5G or otherwise, where you live, work and play. That’s going to be different for someone living in a remote part of the country where AT&T and Verizon still provide the best signal – because let’s face it, T-Mobile’s network before the 5G era was nothing to write home about.
That said, overall, customers in the U.S. are relatively happy, according to Entner, whose firm in 2024 surveyed 200,000 Americans about their mobile network experiences. Unlike other geographies like Europe, wireless networks in the U.S. are pretty decent (but apparently not as good as Iceland.) The net promoter scores for all three U.S. network providers were “very good,” Entner said.
So, there you have it. That and $35 will get you into Rocky Mountain National Park, moose or no moose. But watch out, because you’re probably not going to have great cell service once you get past the entry gates. And that goes for all the major carriers.
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Op-eds from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff are opinion pieces that do not necessarily represent the opinions of Fierce Network.
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