T-Mobile executives are crying foul over today’s report from a Seattle-based wireless metrics company that awarded Verizon for the best overall service.
RootMetrics, after driving almost 218,000 miles and collecting more than 4.6 million data points, gave Verizon the best overall score after rating the nation’s top four carriers on a number of factors, including speed, reliability, and performance of their cellular and data networks.
Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA didn’t fare nearly as well, lagging behind Verizon, Sprint and AT&T in two of three metrics while only placing third for speed.
But T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray, speaking this afternoon at Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco, said that the results are basically irrelevant.
He noted that T-Mobile bases its wireless performance on crowdsourced network benchmarking from platforms like Ookla’s Speedtest.net. The company actually referenced this method in January at CES, when it claimed that had the fastest 4G LTE in the nation based on that crowdsourced real-time data.
“T-Mobile is the clear leader and has been for several months in terms of performance,” Ray said.
Ray also said the RootMetrics report was “old news,” with data that was “seven or eight months old.” RootMetrics notes that it collected its information in the second half of 2013.
In addition, the T-Mobile CTO said that the report was funded “pretty much by wireless carriers,” and noted how Verizon referenced the findings on Tuesday, one day before they were released to the public.
“It’s a surprise for us, but not for them,” he said. “Read into that what you want.”
Neville added that much of the RootMetrics data came from rural parts of the country, which he thinks “heavily dilutes key metro areas where most people use services.”
“We have a tremendous product in the key metro areas — the fastest LTE product in the industry,” he said.
Of course, outspoken T-Mobile CEO John Legere had something to say about all this on Twitter:
Congrats to our competitors –you guys really knocked it out of the park on that report, LAST year when the tests were done. #uncarrier #BGR
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 5, 2014
We've said it before, but I’m happy to say it again. We look at REAL results from REAL people when we make network claims. #uncarrier
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 5, 2014
Our claims are made on speed tests done by actual customers on their devices. Theirs are made by a guy driving around in a BMW.
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 5, 2014
Interestingly, T-Mobile actually used data from RootMetrics for its coverage maps one year ago to show how its signal strength stacked up to other carriers.
