Random Thoughts

This is a question I'm often asked from friends and relatives and wanted to answer this based on my experience running DriveTester.US for over a year. I never like to answer this question because there isn't a best carrier in my opinion.

Who is the best carrier?

Depending on where you live and even different subsections in same towns, you can have varying experiences with coverage and performance. The big question to ask yourself is where do you travel often, which features are important to you, and how much plan cost factors into the decision. In regards to the last question with cost, it is often true that you get what you pay for.

Which Network?

I often suggest asking your friends or family about their provider (I know this is common sense).

In most parts of the country, I would say that consumers are using either one of the postpaid carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular (not available in my area), an MVNO that utilizes one of these networks, or the direct prepaid brand of these carriers. Here are some steps I would follow when considering a new carrier.

If your friends/family travel or live around the same area you are in, ask them if they ever lose service, have unusable speeds, and/or dropped calls, etc with that carrier.
Have one of your friends/family run a speedtest app on their phone. Maybe Ookla Speedtest, or NPERF. NPERF is good in the sense that it does some testing of browsing and video speeds in addition to the standard download, upload, and ping.

For NPERF, here is a recommendation:

I would recommend at least 70% performance rate (average on the browsing/video tests). I typically see at least 80% on the higher tier postpaid plans.

The Zoom website (browsing) is constantly low so I would only worry about the other 4.

Download speeds of at least 10 Mbps consistently (at a minimum). Upload at least 5 Mbps (minimum).

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It is my opinion (and many others) that the United States is far behind in the realization of fast 5G networks. It is very disappointing compared to some other countries.

T-Mobile (as of the last 6 months in my area), is the only provider who averages above 200Mbps in areas where mid-band spectrum is deployed.

In regards to Verizon, they are now deploying Band 77/C-Band which in some spots and can get comparable speeds to T-Mobile's mid-band but they are still behind (around 6 months) compared to where T-Mobile is in regards to fast 5G deployments. Their speeds and coverage are too intermittent and not consistent. They are also doing this in phases where the first 60 Mhz of spectrum is currently available with more to be deployed shortly. T-Mobile has 100 (140 Mhz) of bandwidth in some areas (I believe).

AT&T has decided to be the last to deploy C-Band. I would say they are maybe 6 months behind Verizon but they've invested more to enhance their LTE network. In many places around my area, they are superior to Verizon's C-Band deployments.

Part of the problem with Verizon and AT&T's deployment was due to a dispute with FAA over the potential interference with radar systems.

T-Mobile got a little bit of a head-start due to their acquisition of Sprint. This helped them greatly with their Band 41 deployments (100 Mhz of spectrum). They also one some auctions that gave them a head start.

If your friend/family has enough data on their plan, run the tests a few times from various places that you will be

3. A good carrier will have at least 3 bars in most areas (this factors in signal quality and strength). Anything less than this consistently means either there is congestion or signal is not strong.

4. If they are on postpaid carrier and you don't want to pay postpaid costs, you may want to consider one of the recommended MVNO providers (below) or one of the carriers prepaid plans (although I have not had as good of an experience on carriers' direct prepaid plans).

MVNO operators (mostly prepaid) utilize the same networks in the United States as the post-paid carriers. They usually don't charge setup fees or require contracts (the contracts are less-common even with postpaid carriers nowadays). The big three providers that are utilized by the MVNO operators (and I cover on this site) are Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. These MVNO providers often have lower cost plans.

Is your Phone Used for A lot of Data?

The low-cost some MVNO operators offer has a lot to do with the amount of data that you will get on your plan. Most times, the MVNO providers may have unlimited data plans but looking at the fine-print, you may be throttled or need to buy additional data after reaching a certain threshold. Between 20-30GB (sometimes higher) are what these providers typically consider unlimited. In some cases, HotSpot (tethering) data comes from a different bucket (sometimes less or no tetherhing without additional fee) but this varies by carrier.

If you are on the road often (without access to Wifi) or prefer using your HotSpot, a plan that has a decent amount of HotSpot data (one that comes from same bucket as your main data) is probably best.

If you need to do video conferencing, here is an idea on the bandwidth requirements that your provider will need to meet (this is from Zoom website).

For 1:1 video calling:

For high-quality video: 600kbps (up/down)
For 720p HD video: 1.2Mbps (up/down)
For 1080p HD video: 3.8Mbps/3.0Mbps (up/down)

For group video calling:

For high-quality video: 1.0 Mbps/600kbps (up/down)
For 720p HD video: 2.6Mbps/1.8Mbps (up/down)
For 1080p HD video: 3.8Mbps/3.0Mbps (up/down)
For gallery view receiving: 2.0Mbps (25 views), 4.0Mbps (49 views)

For screen sharing only (no video thumbnail): 50-75kbps

For screen sharing with video thumbnail: 50-150kbps

For audio VoiP: 60-80kbps

For Zoom Phone: 60-100kbps

If you are on group video conferencing calls (with video) and average of 4 hours a day when you are on the road and don't have Wifi (probably not common), here is the amount of data you would roughly use. I am going based on the 720p HD video (middle).

2.6Mbps (Upload) + 1.8Mbps (Download) = 4.4 Megabits per second

There are 8 bits in a byte, so for every minute you are on a call, so this is approximately 550 Kilobits/second of data transfer every second.

For a minute, this is 33 Megabytes of data.

For an hour, this is almost 2GB of data.

For four hours, 8 GB of data.

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I'm going to make a blanket statement at this point that will greatly help your decision if you don't have Wifi (or decide to use it), do video-conferencing and/or stream movies. You are best to go with a postpaid carrier with a high-tier plan. It is less likely you will get throttled and you will most likely have a lower-latency/higher throughput gateway (APN) to the Internet.

Some Recommended MVNOs

If you don't want to deal directly with carriers, these are some providers I can recommend based on a combination of price and performance. I've used all of these at some point in my testing. They are:

Highly Recommended MVNO Providers

-U.S. Mobile (Verizon Network plan has 100GB of data) for around $45
-Google Fi (Utilizes U.S. Cellular and T-Mobile networks with 50GB of data and other perks) starting at $50/month
-Mint Mobile (T-Mobile network with 35GB of data) for $30 a month
-Metro By T-Mobile (prepaid brand of T-Mobile) can throttle after 35GB if network is congested but this is not as common with T-Mobile's mid-band network. Their pricing starts around $40/month

Somewhat Recommended

-I have not tried X-Finity but seems like a good deal if you have other service from them. They use Verizon's network.

-Lastly, there is Visible which is a prepaid brand of Verizon. They charge $40/month. They are truly unlimited but limit hotspot data to 5Mbps. I've had some issues with either throttling or problems with their gateway which causes reduced speeds in a lot of cases.

-Cricket (AT&T prepaid plan) might be good but I have not tried personally.

More DriveTester.US updates to come soon.

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If phone calls and/or texting are all that you need, an MVNO would most likely be ok. I would say to utilize a build-your-own plan from U.S. Mobile (less than $10/month without data) or one of Mint's lower-priced plans.