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T-Mobile Claims Verizon Network Slowed 14% After Unlimited Data

T-Mobile claims that Verizon's network performance dropped by 14% in the wake of the company's February decision to bring back unlimited data. Verizon has long justified its higher prices by claiming that its network offers superior performance. That has grown harder to do as a growing number of studies indicate that T-Mobile is slowly but surely closing the gap when it comes to wireless network coverage, speed, and overall performance.

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But speaking on a conference call with media and industry analysts, CEO John Legere suggested that the company's network struggled under the shift to unlimited data.

"An interesting thing has happened since Verizon announced unlimited, and it won’t show up until you get to the next quarter’s results," Legere said on the call. “Verizon’s network has slowed down 14%, and they are now slower on the 4G LTE side than AT&T. And in the same time, the speeds on our network have grown 10%. So when we say there’s only one network built for unlimited, it’s clearly ours."

A company press release claims that T-Mobile came to this data by examining Ookla Speedtest data from January 1 to February 12 for Verizon (25.49 Mbps) and January 1 to February 15 for AT&T (24.41 Mbps) compared to the week of April 9-15 (21.96 and 23.51 Mbps respectively).

Verizon did not respond to a request for comment.

Verizon of course returned to unlimited data after it began losing a significant number of subscribers to T-Mobile. And even then, Verizon lost 289,000 postpaid subscribers last quarter, while T-Mobile added 798,000 -- losses that data suggest would have been even worse if Verizon hadn't opened the door to unlimited in the middle of the first quarter.

Most recommended from 52 comments



IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

3 recommendations

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

As usual staying with Verizon

I'm happy with Verizon Wireless.
Adam G620
join:2016-01-31
River Forest, IL
Pace 5268AC
Google Wifi

1 edit

2 recommendations

Adam G620

Member

Ok...

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Lets keep in mind that 14% slower is still a good bit faster than T-Mobile. This is Chicago right now on Open Signal.