Ookla confirms T-Mobile is the fastest carrier for 5G with the best coverage

T-Mobile 5G network on the OnePlus 7T Pro
T-Mobile 5G network on the OnePlus 7T Pro (Image credit: Andrew Martonik / Android Central)

What you need to know

  • T-Mobile is the fastest 5G provider according to Ookla
  • T-Mobile has the greatest consistency score with 84.8% of results showing at least 5Mbps down.
  • T-Mobile 5G now covers 287 million people and 125 million have Ultra Capacity 5G.

T-Mobile customers on 5G get better speeds, consistency, and coverage than any other carrier. T-Mobile, citing results from the Ookla, can once again say its the fastest 5G network. Ookla makes the popular Speedtest app and speedtest.net website and has used data collected from tests on its platform to confirm that T-Mobile is America's fastest 5G network. In the first quarter of 2021, T-Mobile's median 5G download speed was 82.35Mbps compared to AT&T in second place with 76.60Mbps. Verizon followed closely with 67.24Mbps. This result helped T-Mobile take the top spot as the fastest carrier according to Speedtest's overall Speed Score.

More impressive than the download speeds is T-Mobile's consistency with 84.8% of results showing at least 5Mbps down and 1Mbps up. There are only a couple of percentage points between the top three with AT&T and Verizon getting 83.5% and 81.6% This result mainly shows that speeds are good across large areas of coverage and not in just a few ultra-fast pockets. T-Mobile customers with a 5G phone also connected to 5G 65.4% of the time showing just how dense T-Mobile's 5G network has become. AT&T followed far behind with 36.2% and Verizon even further with 31.0%.

T-Mobile's President of Technology Neville Ray said:

Ookla's report is just the latest to prove T-Mobile is America's leader in 5G, with real customer data showing T-Mobile delivers the fastest 5G speeds and a 5G signal more often. While the other networks play catch up, T-Mobile 5G will keep layering on even more capacity and speed to the nation's largest 5G network.

T-Mobile also has the largest 5G coverage area by far. T-Mobile's 5G dominance is driven by its focus on building a layered 5G network with T-Mobile's Extended Range 5G covering 287million people. To help increase download speed and capacity, T-Mobile has also deployed its mid-band Ultra Capacity 5G to 125 million people and expects to cover 200 million by the end of 2021. With a high-performance network and some of the best cell phone plans, T-Mobile is a great choice and has a ton of potential to keep growing.

Samuel Contreras

When Samuel is not writing about networking or 5G at Android Central, he spends most of his time researching computer components and obsessing over what CPU goes into the ultimate Windows 98 computer. It's the Pentium 3.