RootMetrics does network performance tests to see just how reliable networks are for the major carriers and it's not great news for the "un-carrier" T-Mobile, they are now dead last in network reliability. While taking down their prices to attract customers they may have a hard time keeping them with their network coverage.
Sprint on the other hand seems to have finally gotten over the merging of Nextel's incompatible network and have made strides to improve their network. They have replaced its entire 3G CDMA network and it started to add an LTE footprint. While T-Mobile was great in major cities after you get out of metro areas it's coverage struggled to keep up with other carriers.
Quality was base on the following factors:
- Overall Performance (a combination of results from data, call, and text testing)
- Network Reliability (a holistic look at reliability across all of our testing)
- Network Speed (a holistic look at speed across data and text testing)
- Data Performance
- Call Performance
- Text Performance
This is a snapshot of right now and Sprint/T-Mobile has been trading 3rd place back and forth for years now. Hopefully T-Mobile will start taking it's successful uncarrier campaign and start spreading the love to it's non-metro customers to expand it's coverage base.