T-Mobile, Xfinity are tops in latest Ookla speed test report

Network intelligence provider Ookla’s latest research shows that T-Mobile had the fastest mobile network in the US, and that Xfinity edged out several competitors for the top spot among fixed providers in the fourth quarter of 2022, the company announced this week.

The median download speed for T-Mobile customers, Ookla said, reached over 151Mbps, marking a sharp increase from the company’s 116Mbps mark in the previous quarter, which was already good enough to make T-Mobile the fastest mobile carrier by a distance.

Verizon and AT&T posted gains — rising from around 58Mbps in the third quarter to 69Mbps and 65Mbps, respectively — but both were far behind T-Mobile. Looking at 5G performance specifically, T-Mobile again led the way by a considerable margin, posting an average 216Mbps download speed, compared to 128Mbps from Verizon and 85Mbps from AT&T.

The big three were more tightly packed when it comes to latency, however. T-Mobile won in this category again, with an average multiserver latency of 56ms, but Verizon was close behind at 58ms, and AT&T posted a 60ms average. Controlling for 5G connections only, Verizon actually won the category for the last quarter, with 53ms average latency compared to T-Mobile’s 54ms. (AT&T hit the 59ms mark.)

A similar situation prevailed in terms of consistency, which Ookla measures as the percentage of connections showing at least 5Mbps down and 1Mbps up. T-Mobile won this category again, with a score of 86.8%, but Verizon and AT&T were both close behind, at 82.4% and 81.1%, respectively.

In fixed broadband, the landscape was more competitive — Spectrum dropped from first to second place as Xfinity moved up from third to take the top spot, with a median download speed of 226Mbps in the last quarter of the year. The top three fixed broadband providers were tightly clustered, however, with Spectrum close behind Xfinity at 225Mbps and Cox only slightly farther back at 212Mbps.

Upload speeds were a substantially different story, however, with AT&T far out in front at a median speed of 142Mbps, trailed distantly by Verizon at 104Mbps. Optimum and Xfinity posted 29Mbps and 20Mbps speeds, respectively, while Spectrum and Cox trailed at 11Mbps and 10Mbps each.

Latency-wise, the clear winner was Verizon, which posted an average 15ms figure, with AT&T languishing in second at 23ms. Optimum, Cox and Xfinity all posted scores of 24 or 25ms, with Spectrum bringing up the rear at 32ms.