Survey suggests this is the slowest carrier if you have a cheap phone

The latest flagship Android phones are often equipped with blazing-fast cellular speeds owing to more advanced modems. But a new survey suggests that the speed gap between flagship and budget phones can also be accentuated by the carrier.

A survey by Recon Analytics (h/t: PhoneArena) yielded over 4,300 speed tests across US carriers. The survey found that flagship phones often had faster speeds than budget devices on the same network. That isn’t a surprise on its own, as high-end phones tend to get faster modems.

What is interesting, though, is that Verizon recorded the biggest gap between flagship and budget phone speeds. Recon Analytics reported that high-end devices averaged 124Mbps versus just 89Mbps for cheap devices. That’s a 35Mbps difference. By contrast, AT&T offered 153Mbps versus 133Mbps (a 20Mbps difference).

There’s good news for T-Mobile users, as flagship devices reportedly averaged 161Mbps compared to 156Mbps for budget phones. This was the smallest gap between flagship and budget devices.

So why is there such a huge gap on Verizon compared to T-Mobile? I can think of at least one potential explanation. Verizon makes aggressive use of mmWave 5G on its networks. However, phones require mmWave antennas and other equipment to actually use mmWave 5G. These hardware additions aren’t cheap, which means we don’t usually see many budget phones with mmWave. This could potentially explain the large gap between flagship and budget phones on Verizon’s network.

These results suggest that if you’re looking for a new carrier and you’re on a strict budget, T-Mobile might offer the best speeds on a cheap phone. But it’s worth noting that this is just one survey. So I’d advise you also check carrier coverage maps for a more complete picture.