Report Finds Verizon Tops Among Carriers in San Francisco

Verizon Wireless beat out the three other major carriers to take top marks in a study of wireless performance in the San Francisco Bay Area.

RootMetrics, a Seattle-area company that focuses on measuring the quality of cellular networks and devices, said that Verizon was tops in call quality, data speeds and overall performance. Meanwhile, RootMetrics found that T-Mobile was tops in text messaging. A recent report for New York City found similar results.

However, for all the bellyaching about dropped calls on AT&T, the study found call issues were even more of a problem with T-Mobile, though AT&T fared second-worst on that measure, with Sprint and Verizon in a virtual tie.

On the data side, the study found Verizon’s 4G LTE network the fastest by far, though it noted that the network was not universally available throughout the area studied. Still, the carrier’s average data speeds were higher than the maximum speeds on any of the rivals, the study found.

RootMetrics gets its data from a combination of professional tracking as well as user-generated reports. The company has apps for Android and the iPhone that users can download to check their own performance and contribute to its overall findings. From there it posts maps that show down to the block level what quality of service users can expect in a given area.

That’s important, RootMetrics CEO Bill Moore said, because most coverage maps only show whether an area has service, not how good that service is likely to be, or the impact from congestion where many users are trying to access overloaded network equipment.

“Congestion is the real gating factor,” Moore said.

Next up, in addition to offering up reports on more cities, RootMetrics plans to compare service quality across different devices. Moore notes that performance can vary widely from one smartphone to another.

“There are differences between manufacturers,” Moore said. “We believe some of that is component parts and some of that is software implementation.”