Known for his detailed independent reports on wireless carriers’ networks that are based on millions of measurements, Opensignal published its first study comparing US fixed broadband services. Along with traditional providers, Opensignal includes 5G home Internet services from Verizon and T-Mobile.
Opensignal typically provides a national score providers in their cellular surveys. However, this does not work when it comes to broadband.
“No broadband provider offers services for every home. As a result, any table of national experiences in practice will miss the most important details for users comparing broadband experiences in their region. For this reason, in this first report, we analyzed the real world situation of all user plans in 25 major markets to assess the possibilities of fixed broadband. We use the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) as the definition of each market – each centered around a large city or town.”
Opensignal's in-depth U.S. fixed broadband report contains nine key overall findings . and for each urban market, providers are ranked against six metrics:
- Broadband success rate
- Sustained broadband quality
- Broadband video experience
- Broadband download speed
- Broadband peak download speed
- Broadband download speed
Here are the results obtained in Los Angeles. /Long Beach/Anaheim:
Here's a look at New York/Newark/Jersey City :
You can check out the full report for the other 23 major markets’ results.
Opensignal US Broadband Report
- Fixed broadband in USA. is in the stage of rapid development and modernization. Consumers have a wider choice of broadband service providers than ever before. Cable companies and incumbent telcos are now facing competition from new fiber manufacturers and fixed wireless players using the latest 5G technology.
- 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) players tend to rank in the middle positions around the world. six key indicators of fixed broadband quality. Incumbent cable and telcos tend to be well ahead of new 5G FWA providers, at least for now.
- In most markets, cable companies have the highest broadband download speeds. This success for cable providers Spectrum, Xfinity, Optimum and Cox has been achieved despite the advent of 5G-based fixed broadband. Fiber players are changing this, but in the 25 cities analyzed in this report, they are in the minority.
- Providers often advertise top speeds that are very different from the real ones. < /strong>Declared speeds now reach 2 Gb/s or 5 Gb/s, and in 2023 – 8 Gb/s. In this report, Opensignal evaluates user experience based on real-world measurements.
- During the peak time of day, from noon to 6:00 pm, consistent broadband performance tends to be lower. However, statistical differences between vendor peak times and average sustained broadband quality are rare.
- In many markets, incumbent telcos lead broadband download speeds. Companies like AT&T, Frontier, or Verizon are well ahead of the next best carrier because of their extensive fiber optic networks. Fiber players are well ahead of all other types of broadband technology in the broadband download speed category, which has grown in importance since the pandemic as more people work from home.
- Fiber-to-Fiber-to. – home broadband providers are also seeing a difference between average download and upload speeds of broadband users compared to competitors using hybrid fiber optic coax (HFC), 5G fixed wireless or digital subscriber line (xDSL) based technologies. telephone lines. .
- Broadband success rates are the same in most markets, regardless of the underlying technology. In most cities, we observed statistical associations between three or more providers. However, there were clear differences in Houston and San Diego in the extent to which Opensignal users could rely on their broadband connection to work when they needed it.
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