T-Mobile vs Verizon vs AT&T: Everyone's a winner in these new speed and performance tests
AT&T and Verizon are tied for the overall performance crown in the latest comprehensive US wireless landscape analysis, while T-Mobile remains the 5G availability and 5G speed king.
Choosing between the top three US carriers might be more difficult than ever before. | Image by PhoneArena
It's always interesting to see the network performance of the top three US wireless service providers evaluated and compared by a major analytics firm based on millions of tests conducted across the nation over several months, but the latest such report published by Ookla is especially intriguing, as it reveals numerous important changes in these carriers' results and rankings from the beginning of the year.
In the first half of 2026, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all managed to win multiple RootScore awards, which was actually not the case in the US State of the Mobile Union study released back in January for the July-December 2025 timeframe.
If there can only be one winner, that's probably Verizon
Yes, Big Red is tied with Ma Bell for the latest overall performance title, as well as the network reliability and text performance trophies, while also winning the network responsiveness, data performance, and video performance battles outright.
Verizon has one more in the win column than AT&T. | Image by Ookla
That's definitely an impressive tally, but it's actually slightly less impressive than Verizon's H2 2025 record, which included a solo overall performance victory, as well as an outright network reliability win and a tied gold medal in the call performance category.
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Verizon is the big 5G experience winner too in H1 2026, but its 5G speed title is now shared with both T-Mobile and AT&T. There's obviously no shame in that, but while Big Red can also be delighted with taking home by far the largest number of State RootScore and Metro Area RootScore awards, AT&T and T-Mobile are clearly making great progresses in key departments that may well change the overall hierarchy soon.
AT&T appears to be the most improved of the three big US carriers
Technically, AT&T only won one trophy by itself in the latest US State of the Mobile Union report. But that's still one more top prize taken home than six months ago, and the number of tied awards in overall network testing is also up from three to four.
That may look bad for AT&T, but it's not. At least not compared to H2 2025. | Image by Ookla
Perhaps most notably, though, AT&T is finally on the board as far as 5G awards are concerned, contributing to a spectacular and rather unexpected three-way tie in the "fastest 5G" section of the new study. That doesn't mean AT&T's peak 5G speeds are quite as high as T-Mobile's or Verizon's, mind you, but it does mean that the average 5G user across the nation should get a very similar experience on all three major carriers.
T-Mobile is not a loser either
Even though Magenta doesn't offer the best 5G experience or the greatest overall performance of a US carrier according to the latest RootMetrics testing, the "Un-carrier" absolutely deserves praise for staying ahead of its rivals in the 5G availability area, tying AT&T (yet again) for the overall network speed crown, and adding a (partial) text performance victory to its overall tally.
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That's quite a win for T-Mobile. | Image by Ookla
That 5G availability win is especially impressive if you consider the relatively substantial advantage T-Mo continues to hold over silver medalist Verizon, which however deserves some praise here too for massively improving its score from H2 2025.
T-Mobile managed to boost its 5G reliability rating too, inching extremely close to AT&T's second position and even looking like it could (eventually) threaten Verizon's supremacy in this category after Big Red dropped a little in the last six months.
The differences are pretty big, but T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T all get impressive median download speed scores nowadays. | Image by Ookla
Incredibly enough, both T-Mobile and Verizon recorded median download speeds of at least 200 Mbps in 123 of 125 major cities tested between January and June 2026, while AT&T settled for breaking that psychological barrier in 110 of the same markets. On a national level, all three carriers boosted their already mind-blowing median download speeds from the July-December 2025 period, with T-Mobile in first place at nearly 400 Mbps (!!!). If that's not a winner, then I don't know what is.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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