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PC Magazine July Issue Now on Sale: Fastest Mobile Road Trip
Traveling around the United States to determine the country's fastest mobile Internet network has some amazing benefits—just not always for the editor-in-chief.
By Dan Costa
https://www.pcmag.com/news/pc-magazine-july-issue-now-on-sale-fastest-mobile-road-trip
It sounded like the perfect plan to both me and Lead Mobile Analyst Sascha Segan: Drive cool new cars across the United States just as summer starts, stop at interesting places, and record it all via social media. Not only would PC Magazine pick up the tab, but these would qualify as workdays. There was just one catch: There would need to be eight cellular phones in the backseat, running speed tests as the scenery rolled by. Once all the testing was done, we would drop the data into an Excel spreadsheet and find out which carrier really did offer the fastest wireless network in the country. And that's pretty much how Fastest Mobile Network has worked out for these last five years—just not for me.
PC Magazine sent three test cars all over America to conduct more than 130,000 speed tests during a three-week period in May, but when our brand-new Chevrolet Impala rolled out of New York City, Consumer Electronics Senior Analyst Will Greenwald was the one behind the wheel. I didn't get to tour the Fern Forest Nature Center in Coconut Creek, Florida—that was our lead software analyst, Michael Muchmore. And it was another one of our software analysts, Max Eddy, who enjoyed a bacon-wrapped hamburger at Ernie's Cafe in Columbia, Missouri. (Okay, it's probably good I missed that.) This year, like last year, I didn't get to do a single mile of driving for Fastest Mobile Networks. This was not the plan.
But we did get some great data.
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Once again, Verizon Wireless' XLTE is the fastest wireless network in the country. It won 16 of the 30 cities we tested in, and also had the best speeds in the rural and suburban areas outside of major cities. You can dig into the results in this month's cover story, but the key takeaway is that wireless speeds are improving across the board. Even Sprint, which has struggled to roll out its LTE network, is once again competitive.
A lot of this has to do with the intense competition in the wireless space. Cell-phone penetration in the U.S. has passed 75 percent, according to comScore. If a wireless carrier wants to grow its subscriber base, it probably has to steal customers from other carriers. And to do that, the carrier has to compete on some combination of price, service, and speed. Fastest Mobile Networks shows that Verizon is keeping its edge over the AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, although just barely.
In fact, looking over the results makes me wish that the broadband ISP market were as competitive as the wireless space. In any city in the country you can choose from between four nationwide carriers and a handful of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). But if you want broadband for your home, you'll be lucky if you have two options: most likely a single cable operator and maybe Verizon FiOS. The result? According to Speedtest.net (which PC Magazine's parent company, Ziff Davis, also owns), the U.S. ranks 28th in the world when it comes to broadband speed. Something to think about as Charter Cable gets ready to swallow up Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable.
Of course, Fastest Mobile Networks is just one part of this issue. I also strongly recommend Jill Duffy's excellent primer, "11 Ways to Increase Your Productivity." I guarantee you there is something in that story that will make an immediate impact on your life. For example, I just installed RescueTime on my work system to track my Web usage. It turns out that I am spending way too much time on Grantland.
Finally, I want to announce a milestone of sorts. We now have more than 90,000 paying subscribers to PC Magazine. Our readers are spread across Zinio, the Apple Newsstand, Next Issue Media, and bunch of other platforms. Your support is what makes this issue possible, and I want to say thanks.
That's why if you use the hashtag #ilovepcmag on Twitter before July 15, we will send you a link to subscribe to PC Magazine for just $1 an issue. That's half off our regular subscription price.
My job may not let me drop everything and drive across the country for three weeks, but spontaneous magazine discounts? Those are totally doable.
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About Dan Costa
Dan Costa served as Editor-in-Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff Davis from 2011 to 2021. In that time, he oversaw the editorial operations for PCMag.com, AskMen.com, ExtremeTech.com, and Geek.com. Dan has appeared on local, national, and international news programs, including CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, and NBC discussing new technologies and their impact. He was also the host of the Fast Forward podcast, where he interviewed CEOs, technologists, and artists about living in the future, available on Apple Podcasts and anywhere fine podcasts are given away for free.
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