I compared Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T’s 5G network signals at a baseball stadium – here’s the winner

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Last week, while my beloved QBs were fighting for their playoff lives, I decided to see how speeds were going on the three largest carriers in America. Since my hometown of Chicago was one of the first testbeds for 5G, I have maintained an interest in it throughout my career.

You see, when 5G was still in its infancy, we were sold two big promises about 5G – speed and capacity. As for speed, the biggest example we were given was “You can download an entire movie while you’re sitting on the street waiting to take off! Well, 5G and airport security concerns quickly put an end to those dreams.”

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The second promise was of capacity. The promise was “you can go to a concert and still stream to your friends back home” and yada yada. So far, in my experience, this has not happened at all. Whenever I find myself at an amusement park or ballgame, my phone makes a great camera, as long as I don’t try to send pictures to someone. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that situation, so I wanted to measure the temperature these days.

When the Cubs advanced to the wild card playoffs, I saw an opportunity. Cubs games are generally well-represented, but seeing as the last time they played in front of a home crowd in the playoffs was in 2017, I wanted to see how these networks handled me with 41,000 of my closest friends. three identical packing pixel 10 professionalI went to the old ballpark for some entertainment – from the outside because it was impossible to get tickets.

game plan

Since traffic around Wrigley Field (and anywhere within a three-mile radius) is dangerous at the best of times, I headed to Wrigley Field from 10 miles away (hi, mom) on my Engwe LE 20 electric bike — side note: I ride this bike more than my car during the summer months.

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Fortunately (or unfortunately), I got a slightly late start, so when the first pitch came in at 2:08, I found myself about 4.8 miles away. This is fine actually, as I wanted to get a baseline for the network before venturing within the park boundaries.

Once I was at the park, I was surprised by the lack of pedestrians outside the stadium. Granted, it was a day game, so there was less interaction outside the park. Aside from foot traffic, the biggest obstacle I anticipated might impact connectivity was the stadium and all the people inside it trying to livestream or share video of their views from the seats.

So at the corner of Lawrence and Pulaski, I ran my first test.

Location 1: Lawrence and Pulaski

San Diego got off to a hot start with a Jackson Merrill sacrifice fly in the first inning to drive in Fernando Tatis Jr. The Cubs couldn’t counter against Dylan Cease, so I was 2.3 miles from Wrigley Field at the corner of Lincoln and Wilson when the second inning started.

Location 2: Lincoln and Wilson

By then, Andrew Kittredge had left the game, his “opener” role ended, and Japanese star pitcher Shota Iminaga entered as the de facto starter for the game. For the record, I don’t like openers, but I’m also not a Major League manager, so I don’t get to vote. Nothing happened in the second inning, but by the start of the third inning, I had arrived at the front gate of Wrigley Field for my first test on the site, and holy toledo!

Location 3: Front Door

Those aren’t inaccurate decimals – they’re four-digit download speeds from both Verizon and AT&T. I’ll spare you the rest of the baseball recap here, but from here I headed to the right field gate.

Location 4: Right-field gate

At this gate, T-Mobile refused to run the speed test, failing to even connect to the server. It’s not great, but there’s a chance to redeem it later in the game. Still, you could see the crowd starting to grow. At the left field gate!

Location 5: Left-field door

fortunately. At the left field gate, there was a TV on at one point so I could see where I was standing. Also, this is where I ran my first download test. Using the same three phones, I downloaded the same 2GB file from my personal Google Drive. This was a 4K video file from a video project I shot recently. Here is the time, formatted in minutes and seconds.

From here, I decided I had to get another baseline, so for the fifth inning, I headed to Lakeside, which is about a mile from the park.

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Separated from the crowd, the Network behaved once again, even though the Padres didn’t – they scored two more runs.

Location 6: Lakeside

Once again, I went back to the ballpark to see what the crowd had to say about those numbers. They did not agree. As I stood at the entrance to the bleachers, watching the extremely creepy tribute to Harry Carey, I took another reading of the top of the sixth inning.

Location 7: Bleachers

Once again, T-Mobile was not participating, so I decided to go back to the right field entrance to see if it was just a Sheffield Avenue thing. It was not.

Location 8: Sheffield Avenue

Here lies our first secret – well, actually the second secret. The first mystery is how Eddie Vedder (yes, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder) managed to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” two days in a row. The other mystery is that T-Mobile actually decided not to play at all on my first visit to this location 30 minutes ago, and now it is outselling its two competitors.

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Anyway, for my final test, I headed to Gallagher Way, which is a sort of entertainment spot for Cubs ticket holders outside the park. Gallagher Way is also a popular venue for non-ticket holders due to the giant Jumbotron that broadcasts games. This is where I stayed for the last Test, which took two innings for a special reason, I will explain in a moment. Here are the speed test results:

Location 9: Gallagher Way

I spent so much time on Gallagher Way because I also did my second download speed test there, and AT&T decided it didn’t really feel like working on anything. I had to stop the download test after 12 minutes, during which only 75% of the download was completed because by then the game was over and we were all sad.

However, more importantly, people were starting to stream out of the park, and I couldn’t stay where I was.

After leaving the park, I wanted to get one last baseline, so once I reached the corner of Lawrence and Clark, about 2.5 miles away, I ran one last speed test and one last download test. Here are the results:

Place 10: Lawrence & Clark

ZDNET Highlights

Well, first of all, cellular networks are a complicated thing. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of factors that will determine how fast your phone will be at any given time. Within a second, you get no signal. Next, you’re speeding through the fast lane. Is it because 39,000 other people decided to put down their phones and sing along? Probably not.

However, the reality is that network congestion can be a major factor in slowing down your phone. Every time I moved away from the park, things got much better. So overcrowding is certainly a factor, but it’s certainly not the only factor.

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Of the three networks, Verizon’s download speed was the fastest at 2,666 MbpsAnd it wasn’t even close. AT&T was second fastest at the same location with 1,299 Mbps. T-Mobile’s speed peaked at 835 Mbps away from the park, but in the area surrounding the park, it maxed out at 184 Mbps.

Interestingly enough, T-Mobile appeared to be the carrier most affected by the congestion – And this comes from my own experience. Away from the park, the carrier managed speeds of 300, 400 and even 800, but once I went out of the park, it dropped into the single or double digits. Speaking of which, here’s how many times each carrier reached single, double and triple digits:

Verizon never reached single digits and reached triple digits the most of any carrier. Does this make Verizon the clear winner? This is a logical issue. Well played, Verizon.

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I contacted all three carriers, and I’ll update this article when they respond. In general, it is important to acknowledge that this is a small sample size. This is network performance in a limited area during a particular three-hour period, and is not an indicator of overall network performance.

But it paints a picture that is consistent with my experience as a T-Mobile customer. Simply put, when too many people gather in one place – ball games, amusement parks, concerts – networks can struggle. Despite promises of 5G that’s almost seven years old, it’s still a thing. Perhaps the Cubs will have better luck than the network has had so far.