Rural customers get the fuzzy end of the 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) lollipop when it comes to broadband download speed and latency, according to the latest Ookla Speedtest Intelligence data that shows a performance gap between urban and remote areas in the US.
Across AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, median download speeds were lower for rural users by between 26 Mbit/s and 49 Mbit/s, while multi-server latency was higher.
Ookla used the US Census Bureau’s urban-rural classifications to analyze 5G FWA Speedtest data for the first time. It found that 70% of test samples came from urban areas and 30% from rural in the second quarter this year, and the performance difference is striking.
The gap in broadband speed by region was biggest for AT&T and Verizon. In Q2, the median download speed for AT&T’s Internet Air in urban areas was 174.2 Mbit/s compared to 132.6 Mbit/s in rural. The regional delta for Verizon’s 5G Home Internet was similar: 148.3 Mbit/s in urban versus 99.3 Mbit/s in rural. T-Mobile, which outperformed across all metrics, had the least difference with 230.7 Mbit/s in urban versus 204.7 Mbit/s in rural.
Urban subscribers also experienced better latency ranging from 7 milliseconds to 13 milliseconds lower, which means applications like gaming or video streaming are more responsive with less lag and buffering.
(Source: Ookla)
Sue Marek, editorial director at Ookla, told Light Reading the performance gap is due to the difference in how cellular networks are designed depending on the location.
“In dense urban areas the wireless networks are engineered to accommodate more people. Because of that, the signal travels shorter distances and towers are engineered to maximize performance,” she said.
Verizon, for example, uses mmWave spectrum in some cities “to push large amounts of data a short distance,” she added.
T-Mobile tops the charts for FWA
T-Mobile once again beat AT&T and Verizon with the best performance for FWA speed and latency, as it did in Ookla’s previous two reports released in December and March 2025.
T-Mobile’s median download speed in Q2 (222.7 Mbit/s) was 38.4% faster than AT&T and 76% faster than Verizon. For uploads, T-Mobile’s median speed was 18.12 Mbit/s in Q2, outpacing Verizon by 48.5% and AT&T by 80.1%.
When it comes to latency, the carrier had consistently lower rates in Q1 and Q2 this year compared to its rivals.
AT&T is second to T-Mobile on download speed and it showed a marked improvement compared to last year’s tests. AT&T’s download rate was 167.34 Mbit/s in Q1, which is about 60% faster than the Speedtest result in Q3 2025.
Ookla said the speed surge is likely due to AT&T’s deployment of midband spectrum it acquired from EchoStar. The carrier said in November that it had activated the 3.45MHz spectrum in parts of the network and that download speeds in those areas were up to 80% faster for mobile services and up to 55% faster for FWA.
Summer’s not the best season for FWA
However, leafy trees and heat in the summer are not helpful for FWA performance. All three carriers had worse test results in Q2 than in Q1. Ookla attributed the drop to a likely “seasonal pattern that we have recognized over time.”
Ookla said it has seen these declines in spring and summer months when trees are “filled with dense leaves that can weaken the FWA signals.”
It also said that hotter temperatures can drag down data speeds because “the increase in thermal noise within electronic components causes networks to default to slower modulation schemes in order to maintain a stable connection.”
Since performance across all carriers dipped in Q2, Ookla concluded that the seasonal changes are “an ongoing pattern” for FWA.
As for state-level FWA performance in the first half of this year, less than 40% of Speedtest users in 48 states experienced the FCC’s minimum broadband speed standard of 100 Mbit/s download and 20 Mbit/s upload.
