A report from Opensignal said investment in the new C-band spectrum is assisting AT&T and Verizon to improve customers’ 5G experience and enable them to catch up with T-Mobile.
Since March, AT&T users’ 5G download speed has increased 34.6 percent. Verizon users’ 5G download speed has increased 15.8 percent.
AT&T users’ 5G download speeds have increased since the beginning of the year when the operator started to roll out 5G services in the C-band. They enjoyed a rise of 17.3 Mbps in their average 5G download speeds between March 2022 and September 2022. This means average 5G download speeds increased by 34.6 percent in this period.
Verizon users’ 5G download speed between March and September 2022 was 11.1 Mbps (15.8 percent), which was driven by the C-band deployments across the U.S.
C-band explains the jump in users’ 5G download speed on both carriers because of its significantly greater capacity than lower frequency 5G bands.
AT&T users saw the fastest average 5G download speeds with the 3.7 GHz band connected — clocking in at nearly 113 Mbps. This was approximately three times faster than the speeds users saw with other AT&T 5G bands — 850 MHz, 1900 MHz and 1700/2100 MHz.
Verizon’s users enjoyed 5G Download Speed averaging at 160.7 Mbps – 3.1-3.2 times faster than on the 850 and 1900 MHz legacy bands and 4.3 times faster than on the AWS (1700/2100 MHz) band.
On the 850 MHz band used by AT&T, users observed an average 5G download speed of 42.1 Mbps, which was over 70 Mbps slower than with the 3.7 GHz band.
Verizon users’ 5G download speed was over 100 Mbps faster on the 3.7 GHz band than on the 850 MHz band. The 850 MHz band is still commonly used by AT&T and Verizon for providing 5G connectivity — though it has been losing relative importance with the rising usage of the C-band during 2022.
AT&T has made significant progress in rolling out its 5G services in the mid-band, but it is still behind T-Mobile and Verizon. Compared to them, AT&T relies on low-band spectrum to provide 5G connectivity to its subscribers.
