AT&T ’s claim that its “ 5 G E ” meshwork — which is a regular 4 G internet boosted with some technical tricks , deceivingly rebrandedas next - contemporaries 5G — has helped make it the fastest carrier in the country does n’t distinguish the whole news report , the Verge reportedon Wednesday .
Last calendar week , AT&T issued apress releasebragging that 5 G E had serve it become the “ firm wireless web in the nation , ” citing speed examination data by Ookla ( which runs speedtest.net ) . But based on an Ooklablog postthis week , while AT&T did improve the speed of its electronic web , some of the numbers the carrier cite may be less impressive than the flattop wants customers to cogitate .
AT&T indeed came in first with hateful download speeds of 34.65 Mbps in Q1 2019 , Ookla wrote , but T - Mobile came in at 34.11 Mbps , Verizon at 33.07 Mbps , and Sprint at 31.21 Mbps . What ’s more , AT&T move from third place from the premature poop , which the Verge note was potential because it was “ far slower to espouse the newer LTE technology ( things like MIMO — multiple antennas arrays — and carrier aggregation ) than its contender were . ” ( AT&T ’s account for what “ 5 G E ” is includes some of these engineering , but asHowToGeek notes , other carrier have adopted them while continuing to delineate those connections as 4 thou LTE . )
The AT&T building in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, seen as fireworks go off at nearby Jacobs Field, in 2007.Photo: Amy Sancetta (AP)
AT&T posted a sudden bump in the last week of Q1 , when it claim to have hit an mediocre download speed of 40.7 Mbps ( much high than competitors ) . As the Verge noted , AT&Treleased an infographiclast week appearing to propose that 40.7 Mbps was its new velocity standard;per Recode , the huge jump is likely because that was the week Apple rolled out iOS 12.2 and AT&T append a “ 5 g-force E ” icon to newer models of iPhones .
Since Ookla relies in part on user - lead up speed examination , what seems to have in reality happened is a bunch of people with the newest , priciest , and fastest iPhones see the “ 5 thou E ” icon and execute the test to see if their phones had indeed gotten faster . AT&T also has a importantly higher percentage of customers using iOS devices than other carriers , 70 pct , so this would have really stacked the deck in its favour .
Ookla wrote :
In the concluding week of Q1 , we also observed an increase in faster tests taken on AT&T ’s net . Upon investigation , we discovered that this correlated with the release of iOS 12.2 and the roll out of AT&T ’s 5 GB einsteinium icon . We also happen that the increase in trial was coming from gimmick modelling that would have started to exhibit the 5 G tocopherol icon , such as the newer generations of iPhone ( XR , XS Max , XS , X , 8 , 8 Plus ) , indicating that consumers were see the new icon and claim a tryout to see what stop number they were getting .
Ookla noted that such short - term fluctuations are why it “ does not formalize national call free-base on less than a quarter ’s worth of data . ” However , it did write that even when they take that last week of data out of the picture , “ AT&T still had the fastest LTE web in the country during Q1 . ”
In any case , Ookla ’s data point leaves most of the big four wireless companies all within expectoration distance of one another — and result can vary significantly base on fix , with salutary serving with one carrier in a specific region not necessarily meaning that another will perform as well . AT&T is doing better than it used to , and presently holds the star , but that ’s reasonably much all .
Arecent study foundthat the circumscribed figure of smartphones that support AT&T ’s “ 5 thou E ” internet do n’t in reality run quicker than they do when connected to regular old 4 gravitational constant meshing . Sprint iscurrently litigate AT&Tfor shoddy business practice , saying it is misleading customers and pre - emptively damaging the reputation of real , forthcoming 5 G networks being deployed across the state .
[ Ooklaviathe Verge ]
clearing : An original variant of this level had a headline order that Ookla “ call b ” on AT&T ’s claims of how much 5 one thousand E improved their internet ; this was our extrapolation from Ookla ’s results , but we ’ve updated the newspaper headline to clarify the troupe ’s findings . to boot , this piece has been updated with further context on those numbers and how it relate to AT&T ’s claims around 5 gee E.
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