Mobile data speed tests in 30 cities across US show Verizon Wireless has best speed and coverage
Fastest Mobile Networks 2015 — We hit 30 U.S. cities to test mobile data speeds on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless, and found the most competitive wireless landscape in six years.
Context & Ripple Effects
PCMag's Fastest Mobile Networks 2015 crowned Verizon on a 30-city tour just months after RootMetrics' February tests also put Verizon at the top of consistently fast 4G — but the panel found the field tighter than it had been in six years, with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint all within reach.
That tightness proved durable and unstable: AT&T took the crown from Verizon four years later, displacing it after a five-year run in PCMag's own benchmark, and then T-Mobile swept 24 cities in the 2021 5G tests before Ookla's H1 2024 Speed Score left it far ahead of both rivals. The 2015 result is the baseline of a decade in which no carrier held the top spot through two consecutive test cycles.
First-order effects
- Verizon enters the second half of 2015 with benchmark-backed marketing claims on both speed and coverage, directly usable against AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile in national advertising.
- Sprint finishes the 30-city tour without a headline win, reinforcing its position as the laggard of the four carriers in this test cycle.
Second-order effects
- AT&T and T-Mobile respond by targeting the same benchmark methodology — each later tops PCMag's and third-party rankings in subsequent years, turning annual network tests into a recurring marketing battleground rather than a one-off scorecard.
Third-order effects
- If the rotation holds — Verizon (2015), AT&T (2019), T-Mobile (2021 and beyond per Ookla's H1 2024 Speed Scores) — network leadership becomes generation-bound rather than firm-bound: whoever leads each radio transition (LTE, then 5G) takes the crown, and no incumbent keeps it across two generations.
The trend: US mobile network leadership now changes hands with each technology generation, making independent benchmark wins — not incumbency — the recurring prize among Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.