Verizon Wireless Claims Top Honors in RootMetrics Testing, Rivals Close Behind

Verizon leads wireless carriers in national coverage and network reliability, but rivals aren’t far behind, RootMetrics reported for the second half of 2016. Verizon had the best reliability among all carriers at the metro, state and national levels during the period, it said. AT&T deployed the greatest amount of LTE spectrum among carriers across the 125 metro markets tested, increasing the carrier’s median download speeds significantly, the researcher said. “While Verizon’s performances on the national stage remained outstanding in all test categories, AT&T offered strong competition, finishing second in five out of six performance categories,” RootMetrics said. “Sprint, meanwhile, delivered particularly strong results during call and text testing.” AT&T finished second to Verizon in all national-level tests except call performance, where Sprint finished second and AT&T finished third. Sprint and AT&T tied for second place in text performance. T-Mobile finished last in all national categories, but generally performed better in metro areas, RootMetrics said. On network speed and data performance metrics, T-Mobile finished second place for total number of metropolitan areas where it was the outright or shared leader.