Study: AT&T 3G Is Fastest But Verizon Wireless Offers Most Consistent Data Network

A recently study has found that while AT&T Wireless’ 3G network is the fastest in the United States it lacks consistency.

The company behind the CarrierCompare app found that while Verizon’s data connections were half the speed of AT&T those connections performed the most consistently throughout the day. The app developer also found that Sprint wireless was the slowest of the “big 3” carrier in the US however its system was overall the most consistent.

The app developer called AT&T’s performance “wildly inconsistent” depending on the time of day in each “test city” utilized for the experiment. According to the group the worse AT&T data use came during the afternoon hours when network congestion is at its worse.

AT&T data connects were so bad in testing when examined for consistency that CNN Money dubbed its mobile data a “crapshoot.”

Testing on the AT&T network occurred mostly on the networks HSPD+ network which it calls 4G however that technology is actually based off third-generation (3G) technology which is not to be confused with 4G LTE.

The study also found that Verizon Wireless was the second fastest carrier in five of the six cities when consistency was taken into consideration while New York City experienced the second fastest network delivered by Sprint Wireless. According to the report speeds from Verizon and Sprint were 50 to 72 percent of AT&T measurements.

Verizon scored another win in the ‘network response’ time category, beating out AT&T by two times. When combined with consistency Verizon’s network response time gives the appearance of a faster mobile data network.

To test their findings developer SwayMarkets gathered information from 40,000 data points in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington DC.

The developer notes that because the information was crowd sourced it is “more indicative of customer’s actual experience with their phones.”