Second day MWCA network test results are in! On Thursday, Global Wireless Solutions, Inc. (GWS) continued network performance testing of the four national wireless carriers throughout the LA Convention Center; tests were conducted using Rohde & Schwarz’s SwissQual Freerider platform connected to Samsung Galaxy S9 devices. The results showed which networks more effectively managed their traffic load on what is typically the busiest day of the MWCA conference.
GWS transferred 9 GB of data while completing 2,500 tasks on the Thursday’s tests of the conference halls. All of the networks successfully completed all packet related tasks. AT&T zoomed ahead with the fastest average download throughput at 82 Mbps (a 25% improvement over Wednesday’s results), mostly as a result of AT&T dedicating 33% more resource blocks (PRBs) than on the previous day. PRBs measure the amount of resources allocated to an active user for data tasks in relation to the total amount of network resources available. AT&T also utilized 256QAM 15% of the time, over twice as much as any other network. Additionally, AT&T and T-Mobile both used 4×4 MIMO whereas Sprint and Verizon did not.
T-Mobile dipped marginally from 68 Mbps on Day 1 to 64 Mbps on Day 2. Verizon remained consistent at 51 Mbps. On the upload, Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T all provided 20 Mbps speeds for a 4 MB video upload, while Sprint trailed at 3 Mbps. The three top networks can post a 2 MB selfie upload to Facebook in about 1.0 to 1.2 seconds, and 4 MB video upload in only 1.7 to 2.2 seconds. That same video upload would take 19 seconds on Sprint. AT&T and Verizon continue to provide the fastest latencies of around 46 msec, T-Mobile maintained its 62 msec from the prior day, while Sprint degraded to 81 msec from 56 msec the prior day. During the voice tests, Sprint continued to exhibit the weakest audio quality throughout the South and West Halls.
We put the numbers through GWS’s unique OneScore algorithm, which weighs and combines all of the various voice and data KPI results and (considering the network performance elements that matter most to consumers) provides a single score on a scale from 0 to 10 (with 10 being the best). Day 2 OneScore rankings for overall network performance, highest to lowest, were as follows: AT&T (9.67), Verizon (9.67), T-Mobile (9.55), and Sprint (7.83).
Tomorrow is the last day of the show so check back to see the networks’ final performance at this year’s MWCA.
