Hey Paul, Sprint Deserves More Credit

"Sprint's reliability is now within 1% of Verizon," says a full page ad in the New York Times today featuring former Verizon Wireless spokesperson ("Can you hear me now?") "Paul."

Like most mobile provider ads these days, there was no footnote explaining what "reliability" meant or which study was being referenced.

Based on the mobile field testing we just completed last week, here is a preliminary snapshot of how Sprint compares with the other providers in terms of average speed (slowest), and average standard deviation (lowest). In other words, even though Sprint generally offers slower speeds, the variation in speed is lower than that of the other three providers. Does that make it more reliable than the other three? Stay tuned.

One major caveat to Sprint's claim is it has a much smaller coverage footprint than Verizon Wireless in California.


The data here are preliminary. More detailed analysis to come...

1. Average Throughput in Kilobits per Second, Up and Down

Spring 2016 Mobile Field Test (In Coverage locations only)

2. Average Standard Deviation in Kilobits per Second, Up and Down

Spring 2016 Mobile Field Test (In Coverage locations only)