For (certain) advertising purposes, T-Mobile cannot claim to be the US “leader in 5G” anymore, but there’s obviously no stopping the “Un-carrier” from touting precisely that title in its official virtual newsroom, especially with concrete evidence supplied by one of the most trustworthy mobile analytics companies out there.
T-Mobile’s Ultra Capacity 5G is getting better and better
In case you were wondering exactly how the second-largest mobile network operator stateside (by subscriber numbers) managed to jump from an average 5G download speed of 58.1 Mbps all the way up to 118.7 Mbps between April and October 2021, the answer is pretty simple.
T-Mo’s mid-band network managed to vastly improve its reach as well in Opensignal’s tests, growing much more easily accessible over the last six months. Of course, the operator’s 5G users still spend the overwhelming majority of their time connected to slower low-band technology, and that remains a problem for speed addicts.
T-Mobile’s “nationwide” 5G network is showing no “statistically significant” change
This has never been materially faster than a good old fashioned 4G LTE connection, and unfortunately, it hasn’t made a world of progress lately, jumping from a 27.7 Mbps download speed average in March to 29.5 Mbps in September.
Yes, the numbers are way higher on non-standalone access (NSA) 5G right now, which essentially means that 4G LTE still has an important role to play in supporting the best possible 5G experience for millions of customers.
