Using mid-band spectrum acquired from Sprint, T-Mobile took the early U.S. lead in 5G
It was a clean sweep for T-Mobile’s 5G services at this airport
There was one little problem. Some of the C-band airwaves that Verizon and AT&T picked up interfered with altimeters used by aircraft flying near airports. Since this instrument tells pilots how far off the ground the plane they are flying happens to be, AT&T and Verizon had to reduce the power of their 5G signals near airports while planes were being retrofitted with different altimeters.
On July 1st of this year, AT&T and Verizon were allowed to increase the power levels of their C-band 5G services and add additional C-band spectrum in the area. Opensignal measured two different 90-day periods. The first started on April 1st and ran until just before the two carriers were allowed to hike the power levels. The second 90-day period started August 1st and covers a period when the mitigation efforts had eased around the airports. The data was collected within two miles of the center point of 20 U.S. airports.
Out of the 20 airports where data was collected, T-Mobile had the fastest 5G download data speed in 16 of them
Before AT&T and Verizon were allowed to increase 5G power levels on their C-band service near the 20 airports and put into operation additional C-band spectrum, T-Mobile‘s average 5G download speeds were 2.4 times faster than AT&T’s and 2.1 times faster than Verizon‘s. After the easing of the mitigation, T-Mobile‘s lead has dwindled to 32-37.5%.
Still, results vary greatly depending on which airport you look at. For example, at Boston Logan International, AT&T customers enjoy the fastest average 5G download data speeds at 130.2Mbps which puts it in a statistical tie with T-Mobile‘s 114.8Mbps. At Chicago O’Hare International, AT&T was tops with an average 5G download data speed of 193.6 and T-Mobile was third with an average speed of 49.6Mbps.
At some airports, such as George Bush Intercontinental in Texas, there is a great disparity in the average 5G download data speeds. At that airport, T-Mobile is the fastest with an average of 120.6Mbps while AT&T was second with an average of 36.4Mbps and in a statistical tie with Verizon‘s 29.6Mbps.
The 20 airports included:
- Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall
- Boston Logan
- Charlotte-Douglas
- Chicago O’Hare
- Dallas-Fort Worth
- Denver
- Houston George Bush Intercontinental
- Las Vegas Harry Reid
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
- New York, JFK
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- Nashville
- Newark Liberty
- Orlando
- Phoenix Sky Harbor
- Ronald Reagan Washington National
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- Seattle-Tacoma
