For years, Verizon has claimed that it has the best wireless network in the US. And for years, JD Power’s studies have backed them up. This year is no different. According to the its 2019 US Wireless Network Quality Performance Study – Vol. 1, Verizon has the best network across multiple categories.
JD Power states that Verizon “continues to dominate, driven by infrastructure investment” in its study.
The results show that Verizon ranks highest in all six regions that were covered by the study. It achieved the lowest network quality problems per 100 connections in call quality, messaging quality and data quality in each region. It’s worth noting that T-Mobile did tie Verizon in data quality in the Northeast region, but fell short in all of the other regions.
The six regions that JD Power examined included the Mid-Atlantic, North Central, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and west. JD Power says that it used around 32,159 responses from wireless customers across the US. This was done between July and December of 2018, so it is rather up-to-date, when it comes to these studies.
For the eleventh year in a row, Verizon has come out on top in this study by JD Power. That shows just how much Verizon has put into making its network the best, but also keeping its network the best. Verizon could sit back and just collect these awards every year. But it is still spending billions each year on its infrastructure, and pushing ahead into 5G – which has already launched on its network in a few cities.
When it comes to Verizon’s competitors though, this does show that they are closing the gap. With the average score being between eight and 14 among all the regions, there’s not much of a gap between Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. T-Mobile has actually closed that gap pretty impressively over the past few years. It used to appear fourth in every region, that is now Sprint’s spot. And in several regions, T-Mobile has pulled ahead of AT&T. Making it look like AT&T has not been investing in its infrastructure as much as it should be.
Sprint is last in every single region. And for some, that is not a huge surprise. There is a reason, after all, that it has been trying to merge with T-Mobile for many years, and why it is also the fourth largest wireless carrier. And it’s not because it doesn’t have the best smartphones. In fact, it has all of the same smartphones that other carriers have. The issue is its network. It’s great in some areas, and not so great in others. For example, in the Northeast and North Central regions it got a 15. While in West and Southwest region, it had a 13.
This is yet another feather for Verizon to stick in its cap, and you can bet that it will. After all, JD Power is a very well-known company, and when people see that Verizon has an entire collection of JD Power awards over the past decade, it does really mean that Verizon is the best when it comes to its network. Even if it does cost a bit more.