Verizon cell network ranks as Tampa Bay area's best

For anyone who ever scowled at a cell phone over a dropped call or a glitchy link, new data shows not all networks are created equal in Tampa – and Verizon officials have reason to smile.

The report card comes from Bellevue, Wash.-based RootMetrics cellular measurement firm, which recently spent a week in Tampa monitoring AT&T, MetroPCS, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon.

How those companies perform with data service is more important to consumers than ever because smart phones, handling everything from directions via Google maps to naming that tune with Shazam, now account for more than half of new phone sales.

Here's how the carriers performed in Tampa:

• Data. Verizon ranked first, with rates 1.5 times faster than the next closest carrier, T-Mobile. Using a top-shelf 4G phone, researchers found Verizon's system ran at download speeds of 13 megabits per second – on par with many cable-modem connections at home and fast enough to download a song in a few seconds. AT&T, Sprint and MetroPCS –came in at 2 to 4 mbps on their best 4G phones.

• Blocked and dropped calls. With calls that won't start and those that fail midway through, T-Mobile ranked worst at almost two in 100. All other carriers failed at about one-fourth that rate. Verizon ranked most reliable with 0.5 percent of calls showing some problem.

• Texting. Most carriers sent and received a message within five seconds, either on their own network or to a customer at another company. But Sprint was many times slower, taking 34 seconds to handle a text within its own network.

RootMetrics chose a quiet week in January for testing, without any major events to confound service.

Verizon ranked highest because it was first to deploy a new generation of cellular service called LTE, which speeds up the fastest 4G phones, said Bill Moore, CEO and president of RootMetrics.

The 4G systems do have drawbacks because the cellular firms have only begun deploying them in select markets and the connections can drain phone batteries quicker. But there's reason for phone companies to go this direction.

"The consumer is increasingly buying smart phones and they just use a lot more data," Moore said. Other companies besides Verizon will start catching up, he said, but not right away.

"It takes a while to build these systems," Moore said.

To gather the data, a RootMetrics teams drove about 2,300 miles around Tampa with the best-available, off-the-shelf Android-based smart phones bought at the cellular company's own stores, such as a HTC 4G Rezound from Verizon and the Samsung Galaxy S II from AT&T.

Day and night, the team automatically made 26,000 test calls, text messages and data links, and made tests from 80 different indoor locations.

The overall scores were roughly the same in Tampa and Orlando, though AT&T had higher call failures there. Verizon ranked highest in downloads in other markets, too, such as Columbus, Ohio, Denver and San Francisco.

As for Sprint's lower scores, company officials say they are "very competitive" after making more than 360 upgrades, with another 65 in the next three months.

They note Sprint is the only major carrier that has not instituted limits on data downloads.