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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways
- I tested 5G connected state roads and farmland for 3 days.
- Verizon led successful wide web levels, followed by AT&T and T-Mobile.
- T-Mobile was the lone web to propulsion successful a 5G signal.
My quest to trial 5G has taken maine to a baseball game and interstates betwixt Chicago and Nashville. Through the journey, I've carried 3 phones from the 3 large US carriers to find which has the champion coverage. I conscionable did it again, but I changed immoderate things up.
I inactive packed my car for a play away, and I inactive had 3 phones riding successful the backmost seat. I utilized nPerf (more connected that later) to continuously trial bearer and web show passim the journey. But this time, I went a small John Denver connected you and stuck to those aged state roads. Interstates were disconnected the menu. As I mentioned during the Nashville trip, it benefits carriers to physique networks wherever radical are, similar large cities and interstates. So I wanted to spell wherever radical were not.
I besides changed up the devices. In the past, I carried 3 Google Pixel 10 Pro phones. This time, I upgraded to 3 identical Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultras. One of these was provided by Samsung, and the different 2 came from AT&T and T-Mobile, respectively. All 3 ran connected eSIMs provided by the carriers.
The setup
This clip around, I had a much refined setup. My past travel had a 2-by-4 committee zip-tied to an Anker artillery with bolts connecting to inexpensive $5 telephone clamps. It worked good enough.
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I zip-tied the telephone holders to an aged portion of PVC that was clamped to the apical of a tripod and held successful spot by a ratchet strap. I said it was "refined," not "good." One of the benefits of this setup was I was capable to glimpse successful the rearview and spot each 3 phones running. Side note: nPerf connected the S26 Ultra crashed acold less times than connected the Pixel 10 Pro. I was relieved we stopped arsenic often arsenic we did connected the Nashville travel due to the fact that I often recovered 1 of the phones nary longer running. No specified contented here.
A car packed for a roadworthy trip, with 3 phones acceptable to trial 5G.
Like the Nashville trip, I connected each 3 phones to an Anker Solix portable battery. This time, I utilized the C1000, with 3 USB-C ports and 5 AC outlets, 1 of which powered my daughter's electrical broad for astir of the trip. We had powerfulness to spare.
Destination anywhere
With the velocity bounds of state roads limiting the region we could travel, I inactive wanted to screen a decent magnitude of ground. I besides wanted to spell wherever radical were not, and I tin guarantee you determination are nary radical successful Douds, Iowa.
That's a existent place, established by an ancestor of excavation backmost successful the 1800s. I'd been determination erstwhile earlier arsenic a kid, but since I had a time to termination and this was successful range, this was my intended target. Douds is not really a municipality -- it was ne'er incorporated. But it had a station bureau and a bid station, and backmost then, that was enough.
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Riverside, IA, has a parkland with a bronze statue of Captain Kirk.
On the mode home, I wanted to skirt confederate Wisconsin, truthful we headed to Platteville, Wisc., wherever I had visited erstwhile arsenic a preteen due to the fact that the Chicago Bears had preseason grooming there. I don't retrieve thing astir that trip, but the sanction Platteville, due to the fact that backmost then, I cared astir the Bears adjacent little than I bash today. Go Cubs.
From there, we headed to Janesville, Wisc., wherever my girl ran implicit a ¼-inch-thick carriage bolt and embedded it successful our tire. Four caller tires later, we yet recovered ourselves home, backmost successful the Chicagoland area.
The results
After contacting nPerf and requesting a information dump of each my results, I ended up with implicit 52,000 information points crossed the 3 carriers, detailing the web benignant and awesome spot each telephone picked up. Just to recap, the 3 categories I tracked were the web awesome type, level, and spot of each bearer passim the 15-hour trip.
Network benignant is breached down betwixt LTE, LTE advanced, and 5G, some standalone and non-standalone. Network level is fundamentally the fig of bars the telephone has astatine immoderate fixed time, and web spot is measured successful antagonistic decibels, wherever the highest fig (the lowest antagonistic number) is best. Here's however things shook out:
The results of 5G testing
Once again, T-Mobile was the lone bearer that recorded immoderate standalone 5G signal. Non-standalone 5G uses 4G networks to found connections. It has higher latency (which is bad) and is considered a benignant of Band-Aid to putting unneurotic a 5G network. Not lone that, but T-Mobile bushed retired the different 2 carriers successful 5G signals by a ridiculous margin, checking successful astatine conscionable nether 90% of the time.
But that's not the full communicative here.
Verizon was the victor astatine the web level by a bully margin, with AT&T coming successful a not-too-distant 2nd place. None of the 3 carriers had precise bully awesome spot overall, though Verizon again led here, with astir 44% of the clip signaling a good, but not great, signal. The different 2 carriers were not acold down successful this category, though.
So overall, T-Mobile whitethorn person recorded 5G signals astir of the time, but the different 2 carriers recorded stronger signals a bulk of the time.
Anecdotal grounds
I drove the full mode to Iowa City and rode successful the backmost the full mode home. In preparation, I downloaded podcasts to perceive to, since I anticipated the awesome mightiness beryllium spotty -- that was the constituent of the experiment, aft all. So, portion I can't talk to my acquisition with signals connected the mode there, connected the mode home, I was tethering to my telephone astir of the clip truthful I could work.
During that time, confederate Wisconsin was the lone country wherever I experienced implicit net failure.
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Most of the time, I was capable to muddle through, though the net surely slowed from clip to time. On the workplace fields of Wisconsin, I got precise small done, but that downtime didn't past agelong -- possibly a full of 20 minutes, springiness oregon instrumentality -- and I noticed it connected 2 abstracted occasions. So, overall, it wasn't excessively bad. It's besides worthy noting that the telephone I tethered to was the Oppo Find N6, which was ne'er meant to enactment connected US soil, truthful that whitethorn person played a portion arsenic well.
But the information that T-Mobile (my carrier) recorded a web level of 1 for 52% of the travel doesn't talk well. At the extremity of the day, each 3 carriers person strengths and weaknesses erstwhile you permission the interstate. If I hadn't been moving with a T-Mobile telephone arsenic my idiosyncratic telephone connected the trip, I'd beryllium precise disquieted astir these results. But my anecdotal grounds suggests things are not truthful bad.
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The takeaway present is that if you unrecorded disconnected the interstate, astir carriers are going to struggle, and those "Fastest network" commercials are not for you. There is enactment to beryllium done there, but overall, it's not astir arsenic atrocious arsenic I expected.
I tin skip downloading podcast episodes adjacent time.
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