Ookla: US mobile networks have average download speeds of 33.88Mbps in 2019, up 24% YoY, but upload speeds remain low at 9.75Mbps; AT&T has the fastest network
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
Ookla's annual US Speedtest readout has become a recurring scoreboard: its 2017 report had T-Mobile holding the fastest-mobile crown, while this year's data hands it to AT&T alongside a 24% YoY jump in average download speeds to 33.88Mbps. The catch is the same one that has shown up across every Ookla cut — uploads trail badly at 9.75Mbps, echoing the downlink-heavy profile Ookla found in its December broadband report.
The headline number also sits awkwardly next to Opensignal's February study, which measured average US 4G downloads at just 18.1Mbps and ranked the US 47th among 77 countries. Two credible methodologies producing a 'fastest network' winner and a mid-pack global rank means the benchmark fight itself is now part of the story.
First-order effects
- AT&T gains the 'fastest US mobile network' claim from T-Mobile, who held it in Ookla's 2017 report — a direct swap in the marketing ammunition all three national carriers use against each other.
- Consumers on every US carrier get meaningfully faster downloads year over year, but the 9.75Mbps upload ceiling leaves cloud backup, video calling, and content creation bottlenecked regardless of provider.
Second-order effects
- T-Mobile and Verizon are pushed to contest the methodology rather than just the result — Ookla's raw Mbps figures versus Opensignal's far lower cross-country measurements give each carrier a favorable stat to cite, fragmenting the 'fastest network' narrative.
- The persistent upload gap pressures carriers to differentiate on uplink capacity in future network builds, since download parity makes uploads one of the few remaining visible performance differentiators.
Third-order effects
- If the crown keeps rotating — AT&T in 2019 after T-Mobile in 2017, and T-Mobile back on top by Ookla's H1 2024 Speed Score data — annual speed benchmarks function more as cyclical marketing wins than durable structural advantages, rewarding whichever carrier's recent capex cycle lands closest to the measurement window.
The trend: US mobile networks post steady double-digit download gains each year while uploads stagnate, and the 'fastest network' title rotates between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile as measurement methodologies multiply.