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ZDNET Highlights
- My 5G road trip tests included rigorous testing on three Google Pixel phones.
- Signal reliability across the three major interstate carriers proved to be generally good to decent.
- Network architecture, including non-standalone 5G, emerged as a factor in deployment.
When 5G was launched it made many promises. The first was the ability to handle excess capacity. I tested that promise outside a baseball playoff game last October, and I found it partially true. The second promise was better coverage from coast to coast. Now, it’s time to get out and try it. How 5G can improve coverage outside city centres.
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To do this, I took those same Google Pixel 10 Pros on a road trip across central Indiana and large parts of Illinois on America’s most boring highway (and, thankfully, a separate highway home). I also drove through parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. Since I live in Chicago, I’ve had great 5G coverage, but what about when I leave the big city?
That’s what I wanted to know. While you were probably shopping for some of the best Black Friday deals, we were driving 13 hours from Chicago to Nashville.
how i tested
This time, I wanted to test not just the network speed, but the overall coverage. So, I took the same three Google Pixel 10 Pros – one each with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile eSIM cards and I attached them to a 2×4 pine board. I plugged them into an Anker Solix C1000 Gen 2 Portable Power Station.
then i loaded nPerfWhich is an app that measures connectivity. There’s actually a ton of functionality built into this app, but for my purposes, I wanted to get an app that could measure connectivity and signal strength as I passed through the heartland of the Midwest. nPerf measures location, carrier, signal strength and a ton of other useful information for network professionals approximately 1,500 times per minute.
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The company graciously provided me with a spreadsheet of all that data. By the time I got back home, I had over 120,000 data points to examine. Needless to say, it was quite extensive.
Also, every hour or so, we would stop at the nearest exit to run a speed test. For this, I used an iPhone 17 equipped with three eSIMs, each from the same three carriers. At the stop, I mounted the iPhone on a tripod, ensuring the same position for each carrier. I cycled through all three carriers, ran speed tests for each, and recorded the results. Overall, I had a lot of data to work with. Some results were surprising, some not.
Result
As you can see, the speeds were generally excellent for the most part. Of the 18 spots, each carrier reached single digits only twice. They largely stayed in the double and triple digit areas, which is to be expected in this day and age. But there is also an additional factor to consider.
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As we drove, when we reached the one hour mark, we would look for a place to stop, like a rest stop or a gas station. That’s fine, but it’s also where a lot of people stop for various reasons. If I were building network coverage, I would first focus on the areas that need to be covered. This is where the people will be. This is why I wanted to test the signal all the way down and back, and that’s where nPerf steps in.
Let’s not forget that carriers have been building 5G networks for more than six years. What does the network coverage look like between those hotspots?
Standalone 5G vs Non-Standalone
One of the things that surprised me was that of the three carriers, only T-Mobile managed any connectivity with a non-standalone (NSA) configuration. Non-standalone 5G deployments rely on existing 4G architecture to help with some of the basic nuts and bolts of establishing and maintaining a 5G connection. On the other hand, a standalone 5G connection uses the 5G infrastructure from the start.
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NSA networks are faster and cheaper to set up because they use existing infrastructure; However, SA 5G is considered a long-term solution. The main difference comes in latency. Since NSA networks use 4G to establish and maintain connections, latency may be affected. This time makes the biggest difference in gaming or remote control applications.
In those cases, latency should be as low as possible. In everyday routine activities, you won’t really notice much of a difference. Still, that metric can give you an idea of what stage of 5G rollout different carriers are in. So here are the results:
This chart breaks down 120,000 data points into three key areas: network connection type (5G/LTE/etc), connection base level (how many bars your phone displays), and network connection strength (in dBm – the higher the better).
Overall, T-Mobile has the widest 5G coverage in both non-standalone and standalone modes, with a coverage rate of 96.2 percent. This is remarkable, considering that our car covered over 1,000 miles on this trip. All three carriers had good signal strength over 80% of the trip, which is also really good. AT&T and Verizon’s 5G coverage both remained above 35%, which is good, but not particularly impressive.
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Signal strength on all three carriers was good or better during more than 90% of the trip. It’s also pretty good considering what I was expecting. One of the most eye-catching metrics coming from this trip is Verizon speeds in Louisville, Ky., below 4 Gbps.
As a side note, it seems like Verizon always has at least one result that’s eye-popping, which is good for them. Another particularly interesting statistic is T-Mobile’s 5G deployment. With numbers like that, it’s easy to believe that T-Mobile may have what it calls “the best nationwide 5G network.”
my decision
Still, it’s important to remember that I conducted these tests while driving on interstates, which are typically crowded areas. It’s worth repeating, if I were going to build a network, I’d probably start with the interstates. If you take a road trip on country roads (which may be the subject of a future article), the story may be very different.
However, I set out to test the 5G network on a road trip, which typically involves traveling the interstate and stopping at gas stations along the way. Overall, it’s reassuring to see that all three networks are building appropriately, and no matter where you find yourself stranded on the side of the road, there’s a good chance you’ll have a signal strong enough to call for help.
