In Ookla’s Q1 data, some 70 percent of speed-tested AT&T devices were iPhones. So while AT&T is certainly the fastest carrier, its win is much smaller than first appeared.ĪT&T, which originally was the exclusive iPhone carrier, already had a higher prevalence of iPhone users than other carriers. Ookla doesn’t validate national claims based on less than a quarter’s worth of data. In the last quarter, AT&T’s mean download speed was a bit lower, 34.65 Mbps, followed closely by T-Mobile’s 34.11 Mbps, according to Ookla. In the last week of March, AT&T’s mean download speed was 40.7 Mbps, followed by T-Mobile with 35.45, according to data AT&T first promoted. These are determined by using AT&T servers closest to you to measure the speed between your devices (including computers, smartphones, tablets, game consoles, and smart TVs) and the internet. We also found that the increase in tests was coming from device models that would have started to display the 5G E icon, such as the newer generations of iPhone (XR, XS Max, XS, X, 8, 8 Plus), indicating that consumers were seeing the new icon and taking a test to see what speeds they were getting.” The AT&T speed test shows your baseline speeds. Upon investigation, we discovered that this correlated with the release of iOS 12.2 and the roll out of AT&T’s 5G E icon. AT&T says it has 5G in 19 cities, but no smartphones can use it yet.Īccording to Ookla, “In the final week of Q1, we also observed an increase in faster tests taken on AT&T’s network. The 5G rollout by all carriers has been uneven. 5G E is AT&T parlance for 5G Evolution - but it is not 5G or the fifth generation of wireless networks rather, it’s AT&T’s regular 4G LTE network with some speed upgrades. Some of that could be confusion about what it is. Category: Network Tools Developer: Dan Elwell Download Buy: 16. Interest in 5G E is higher than ever, judging from search results on Google. Dan Elwells Broadband Speed Test is a smart and handy downloadable utility that can test your Broadband connection, identify any areas of concern, monitor performance over time and generate diagnostics you can use to send to your ISP. Ookla measures speed on iPhones and Androids through user-initiated speed tests. As a result, the data is skewed more in favor of AT&T iPhone users than usual, because a larger share of survey takers were people with new AT&T iPhones than would normally occur on Ookla’s tests. Thanks to 5G E visibility, owners of newer, faster iPhones in select cities conducted more speed tests than normal. This, along with AT&T’s extensive 5G E advertising, is currently the subject of a Sprint lawsuit against the company for deceptive practices.

AT&T is the fastest US mobile provider but probably not by as much as first reported, according to new information from speed-test company Ookla.ĪT&T’s overall mobile speed was artificially inflated in Ookla’s latest speed ratings by the sheer number of people testing their new “5G E” connections, whose icon notification has recently started showing up on newer iPhone models.

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