Testing carrier networks in 26 US cities shows that while 4G speeds are up overall, 5G does not live up to the hype, with AT&T's 5G largely slower than its 4G
After a decade of testing 3G and 4G wireless networks, this year we drove around 26 US cities amidst a pandemic to determine whether 5G is ready for prime time.
Context & Ripple Effects
This test lands two years after AT&T rebranded its LTE-Advanced network as "5G Evolution" — a move OpenSignal's measurements showed delivered essentially the same speeds as rivals' ordinary 4G (28.8Mbps versus T-Mobile's 29.4Mbps and Verizon's 29.9Mbps). The new 26-city drive tests now extend that skepticism to genuine 5G: nationwide rollouts are live, but AT&T's 5G largely underperforms its own 4G.
The finding also sets up the scoreboard the industry would be judged by a year later, when follow-up testing showed T-Mobile winning speed tests in 24 cities and rural regions against AT&T's eight and Verizon's two (T-Mobile's commanding 5G lead) — and matched The Verge's assessment that widespread US 5G was still delivering only 4G-like speeds.
First-order effects
- Consumers who bought 5G-capable phones on AT&T get no immediate payoff — in most tested cities their device performs worse on 5G than it would on the carrier's own 4G network.
- AT&T's 5G marketing claims take a direct credibility hit from an independent tester with a decade of comparable baseline data, at exactly the moment carriers are using 5G to justify premium plans and upgrades.
Second-order effects
- Rivals' deployment choices become the differentiator: T-Mobile's low-band strategy, which looked unglamorous next to headline millimeter-wave speeds, is what later produced its sweep of 24 city wins over AT&T and Verizon.
- Handset makers and retailers lose the "buy 5G now" pitch as a near-term selling point, pushing upgrade demand back onto camera and battery features until networks catch up.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, carrier competition shifts from who launches 5G first to whose spectrum and coverage actually deliver measurable gains — rewarding mid-band buildouts over logo-first launches.
- Independent drive-test rankings harden into the de facto accountability mechanism for network claims, the same way they exposed the 5G E relabeling, pressuring regulators and marketers alike toward verifiable performance standards.
The trend: US 5G is moving from launch-theater to measured performance, where independent city-by-city testing — not rollout announcements — decides which carrier's network claim survives.