A new study of broadband reliability finds a top-two finish that you might not expect from recent surveys of ISP customer satisfaction: Charter’s Spectrum and Comcast’s Xfinity, the two largest cable operators in the US.

Opensignal’s report, published Thursday, draws on software telemetry collected from April 1 through June 29 of downtime, consistency of service, and how well a provider meets basic thresholds for speed, latency, and other core performance metrics.

Spectrum comes in first with a "Reliability Experience" score of 741 out of 1,000, followed by Xfinity with 710, Verizon with 625, AT&T with 546, and T-Mobile with 525. Opensignal chose those five companies to study because each passes more than a third of US homes.

But while Comcast and Charter employ the same basic cable architecture except for a few fiber-to-the-home pockets, Verizon and AT&T have mixed networks. That includes extensive and growing fiber service but also fixed 4G and 5G wireless from Verizon and hybrid-fiber broadband from AT&T, both of which lack fiber’s speed and capacity advantages, plus obsolete DSL connectivity.

T-Mobile’s home connectivity, meanwhile, is almost exclusively fixed wireless.

If you’d prefer a comparison of specific kinds of broadband connectivity instead of company-wide data, Opensignal has one coming.

“We are publishing a report in the coming weeks that looks at market-level and breaks out operators by technology footprint,” Micah Sachs, VP of client analytics and insights, said in a statement. “It segments Verizon fiber, AT&T fiber, Verizon FWA, etc.”

He also noted that Opensignal’s data reflects Wi-Fi network performance. If your network doesn’t reach some corners of your house or your wireless router is old and slow, that shapes what its software sees.

“In-home Wi-Fi is a key factor in broadband reliability experience,” Sachs said. “The biggest driver is unquestionably technology mix, but Wi-Fi generation, signal strength and Wi-Fi spectrum band used also can have a material affect on scores.”

This report also doesn’t assess the effect of data caps or slower upload speeds on performance, although a survey this London firm published in May did offer breakdowns of download and upload speeds.

That may further explain the variance between this perspective and such subjective surveys as PCMag’s Readers’ Choice awards for ISPs, in which AT&T Fiber, T-Mobile Home Internet, and Verizon Fios outranked Spectrum and Xfinity.

Opensignal’s report also includes data on how providers match up for reliability in areas in which they compete. They show Xfinity and Spectrum each besting AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile; the two cable giants don’t compete against each other, a legacy of most cable operators starting with exclusive local franchises to deliver wired pay TV. AT&T beat Verizon and T-Mobile, Verizon outperformed T-Mobile, and T-Mobile didn’t exceed anybody else’s reliability.

By: DocMemory
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