Sprint ties with Verizon for first place in mobile performance for Denver.
After coming in dead last for four years, for best overall mobile performance, according to a new report by .
RootMetrics — which conducted more than 20,000 voice, data and texting tests in the last few days of August — gave Sprint the highest marks for network speeds and data. But all the carriers did well, which is “great news for mobile users,” said the researcher. The four networks, which also include T-Mobile and AT&T, tied in the network reliability score with all earning scores above 97 out of 100.
Reliability, however, is just one piece of why consumers stick with a mobile service, said Annette Hamilton, RootMetrics’ director of marketing communications.
RootMetrics sent testers out throughout the Denver metro area to test service, quality and speeds of mobile coverage. In all, testers conducted 20,424 tests and drove 1,065 miles. They tested voice, data and texting quality outdoors and in 34 indoor locations.
“Rarely does a consumer want only reliable service, More often, they want a highly reliable service combined with other factors that are most important to them,” Hamilton said. “For instance, highly reliable service plus fast data speeds might be the right combination for one customer but another might want reliability combined with the lowest dropped-call rate plus best text performance.”
Sprint scored the highest in the speed test, with a median download speed of 12.8 megabits per second, while T-Mobile sank to 6.8 Mbps (from 9.8 Mbps in ).
Sprint said it has been working on its service and added “hundreds of new 2.5 GHz cell sites,” to help increase its 4G coverage, said Sprint spokeswoman Adrienne Norton.
The company lagged behind the others when technology moved from 3G to 4G. Sprint backed. All the carriers now use 4G technology based on LTE, short for long-term evolution.
“Our network performance suffered as a result of a multi-year effort to rip and replace every piece of equipment in the network. But, this gave us a brand new platform to build on and the results are now coming to fruition in markets like Denver,” Norton said. “Our network has gone from worst to first and Denver is now one of our top performing markets. Our goal is to replicate this same level of outstanding service in every city in the country.”
The companies are constantly tweaking technology. T-Mobile, which to improve indoor and remote coverage in Colorado, dropped to third place in speed compared to tying for first last spring. T-Mobile was unsure RootMetrics was using the latest 700 MHz devices.
AT&T, meanwhile, trounced the others for call quality, which helped it tie for third place in overall performance. Last spring, AT&T placed fourth.
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