RootMetrics: Verizon Tops US Carrier Rivals

It's always good when smart people agree. RootMetrics is one of the premier mobile network survey operations in the country, drive-testing all of the major mobile carriers year-round to determine whether AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon is the strongest. In a report released today, the company said it agrees with our Fastest Mobile Networks survey: for early 2014, the Verizon Wireless network rules the roost.

Root's studies don't use quite the same methodology as ours, so it's informative to read both. We hit 30 cities within a month. Root rotates 125 cities throughout the year. We use the same device for all the major networks. Root does that sometimes, but uses different phones at times, too. We split 3G and LTE network performance; Root mixes them. Root tests calls and texts; we focus on data. Root does a lot more driving outside the major metro areas than we do. We do Canada; Root doesn't. Both sets of studies are useful when you're picking your wireless carrier.

Like in our Fastest Mobile Networks study, Root found that Verizon's new XLTE spectrum is making the carrier's data network faster, while the carrier also leads on reliability and call performance. We agree.

Second place in Root's new study went to AT&T, in large part because T-Mobile's and Sprint's LTE networks drop off so sharply when you leave major metro areas. Root found that outside major metro areas, Sprint and T-Mobile are hardly players. In its state-by-state results, which balance cities and rural areas, Verizon and AT&T took every one of its awards.

Root also recommends Verizon and AT&T in big cities, and it's interesting to see where its results differ from ours, as we showed much stronger results from T-Mobile. The answer comes in what's tested. T-Mobile actually beat AT&T on data speed, which we found. But in Root's tests, AT&T simply crushed T-Mobile on phone call and text performance, which we don't test. If T-Mobile is going to get these guys' attention, it needs to step up performance not only on its flagship LTE network, but on the 3G network that carries its calls and text messages. Sprint, meanwhile, had pathetic results at the metro level, winning zero data or speed awards.

You can find Root's full set of city data in an interactive map on its website. Our Fastest Mobile Networks 2014 page has our full study from May. Our drivers are currently in Canada preparing our Fastest Mobile Networks Canada project for September; you can follow them on Twitter.