The folks over at Root Wireless were paying more attention to the coverage off the field than on the field at Super Bowl XLIV. The company turned out a report on which carrier provided the best network performance for the Big Game in Miami.
Monitoring network activity throughout the game, Root Wireless analyzed network speed tests designed not to determine absolute maximum data throughput speeds, but rather the actual performance experienced by smartphone users downloading and uploading data before, during and after the championship football game.
Sprint and T-Mobile USA emerged the winners last Sunday. Sprint’s signal was the strongest, with 96 percent of full bars. The carrier's data service averaged 231 kbps when downloading and 68 kbps when uploading. Sprint’s data connection failure rate was 9 percent, slightly higher than its typically reported failure rate.
T-Mobile had the fewest number of data connection failures, at 3 percent. Its data service averaged 237 kbps when downloading and the fastest upload data at 126 kbps. T-Mobile’s signal strength averaged 72 percent of full bars.
According to Root's data, Verizon Wireless may have a bigger map but reported significantly more data connection failures than usual. According to Root, Verizon saw 11 percent of connection attempts failed and its transmission speeds were not in line with its typical performance, averaging 97 kbps when downloading data. Upload speeds averaged 58 kbps and Verizon’s average signal strength was 54 percent of full bars.
AT&T provided the fastest data downloads, averaging 348 kbps. Its average upload speed was 68 kbps. But it wasn’t all love for AT&T. The carrier had the highest rate of data connection failures as 16 percent of connection attempts on its network failed. AT&T’s average signal was 81 percent of full bars.
Root conducted the tests using smartphones stationed at a fixed location in the Sun Life Stadium parking lot. The company ran the tests from 1 to 11 p.m. Feb. 7. Root notes the results were local to Sun Life Stadium; its testing across several metropolitan areas has confirmed that all network performance is local, varying from neighborhood to neighborhood and from service provider to service provider.