Verizon and T-Mobile have continued their 5G home internet investments across 2023. Now, Ookla is out with its latest independent report looking at how performance has increased for download and upload speeds as well as how the services compare in urban and rural areas.
Ookla shared its latest research in a post titled “U.S. – The Rise of 5G FWA & The Battle for Fixed Broadband Customers.”
Big takeaways from the new data include:
- T-Mobile & Verizon 5G FWA performance holding up well nationally
- Cable & DSL providers bear the brunt of user churn
- Users that switched to 5G home internet (5G FWA) saw an increase from their previous cable or DSL provider
- Further C-band spectrum will serve to strengthen FWA’s case
As for download speeds across 2023, T-Mobile continued its lead but didn’t see much change, starting at 119.89 Mbps in Q4 2022 and creeping up to a median speed of 122.48 Mbps by Q3 2023.
Verizon made a notable improvement, starting at 94.77 Mbps in Q4 2022 and increasing to 121.23 Mbps by Q3 2023 – almost matching T-Mobile.
Upload speeds remained roughly the same for the year between 15-20 Mbps.
Urban vs. rural performance
For urban customers, Verizon was slightly faster for download speeds, with a median of 155.77 Mbps.
But for rural customers, T-Mobile led by a big margin with a median speed of 91.96 Mbps.
Ookla also looked at performance prior to switching to T-Mobile or Verizon’s 5G home internet and more. Check out the full report for all the details.
AT&T finally launched its 5G home service this year called “Internet Air.” But it features much more limited availability and slower performance than both T-Mobile and Verizon.
Read more about the similarities and differences between the two 5G home internet options in our full guide:
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