TL;DR

I’ve spent the better part of the last few years on a journey to better understand consumer cellular options, which has included testing dozens of prepaid carriers. Of course, every region in the US is different due to factors like congestion and coverage. What works well in one area might not perform as well in another. Speed tests like Ookla can help provide a broader picture of expected speeds across the US. And according to its latest report, Metro by T-Mobile is the clear leader in this area.

As expected, it didn’t take T-Mobile long to start touting this victory. While T-Mobile’s announcement makes a few assumptions and simplifications, as you’d expect from a press release, the key takeaway is that Ookla found Metro by T-Mobile to be the fastest prepaid network overall, as well as the best across four of the six major metro areas in the US when it comes to both LTE and 5G speeds.

Just like with Ookla’s ISP tests, it’s important to take the results with a grain of salt. Every speed testing platform has slightly different methodologies, and they tend to focus on larger carriers. For ISPs to qualify for the ISP list, they need to show up in 3% of the test data collected, meaning many smaller players are excluded.

There are numerous prepaid carriers out there, including many T-Mobile MVNOs that use the same network as Metro, some of which have similar or identical prioritization levels. Not all of these seem to be represented in Ookla’s reporting. It’s also crucial to remember that a good mobile service involves more than just speed.

In my own experience, I’ve found consistency, ping times, customer service, and special features to be just as important. For its part, the Ookla report does evaluate other factors, such as the most consistent network, video experience, and customer sentiment.

In terms of consistency, Metro narrowly came out on top at 88.5%, compared to 88.3% for Visible. Boost and Cricket were not far behind, with scores of 84.8% and 80.6%, respectively. Visible ranked highest for video performance at 78.68%, with Metro close behind at 77.15%. Boost and Cricket followed not far behind Metro. Lastly, Visible led in customer sentiment with a score of 3.91, while Metro took second place with 3.66.

What does all that mean? Oookla honestly doesn’t do a great job of detailing its scores, but the takeaway is that while Metro might be the speediest overall, many prepaid carriers walk a close line. Ultimately this is good news for prepaid in general, as it continues to edge closer and closer to the postpaid experience while still costing significantly less.