For past two years, PCMag has been doing tests of mobile network data speeds in major cities across United States. Last year, AT&T was the fastest network overall in US, while Verizon was constantly in 3rd or 4th place with T-Mobile in second. However, this year the tables have turned completely with Verizon’s deployment of new LTE 4G network.

PCMag ran more than 140,000 tests in 21 cities, using lots of mobile phones and custom software designed by network testing firm Sensorly. The tests were just done for Internet connection and data speeds, and not for voice quality, dropped calls or coverage.

In northeast part of the country which includes Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington DC, Verizon 4G was the fastest, followed by T-Mobile, Sprint 4G and AT&T in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place respectively. Results were same in southeast, central and western regions of the country.

Sascha Segan wrote, “Overall, Verizon's LTE system is remarkably faster than the technologies AT&T, MetroPCS, Sprint and T-Mobile are currently using for "4G." Even with one hand tied behind its back—a 20-percent penalty to its speed score for its lack of rural coverage—Verizon's new 4G network trounced the other carriers. In many areas, it was even faster than some DSL or cable connections.”

Verizon’s LTE based 4G network was 3x – 5x faster than the so-called 4G networks of AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. Even though, AT&T and T-Mobile are saying that they have deployed 21Mbps and 42Mbps HSPA+ networks their real world speeds are 1/10 of their claimed specs. Clearly showing that HSPA+ networks are no match for LTE networks when it comes to real world performance.