Mike Dano, in a long (too long, I say) report for Ookla (makers of the nifty Speedtest app):
Further, few other countries in the world followed in the mmWave
footsteps of the U.S., with international spectrum regulators
instead putting a focus on releasing mid-band spectrum for 5G.However, mmWave networks haven’t disappeared. New drive test data
from Ookla’s RootMetrics, coupled with crowdsourced information
from Ookla’s Speedtest Insights, shows the ongoing growth of
mmWave 5G networks in the U.S., as well as the remarkable
performance characteristics of those systems.
Across all of RootMetrics’ testing in the second half of 2025,
in both urban (metro) and rural (state) areas, mmWave showed up
in 2.2% of Verizon’s samples. For AT&T, that figure was 0.2%.
For T-Mobile, that figure was almost 0% (and as a result, this
report will mainly focus on Verizon and AT&T).Verizon’s mmWave connections showed up in 75 markets in the
first half of 2024 (out of a total of 125 markets), a figure
that rose to 91 in the second half of 2025. That’s almost triple
the number of markets where RootMetrics recorded AT&T mmWave
systems in the second half of 2025. 5G mmWave from T-Mobile,
meanwhile, only showed up in 1 market covered by RootMetrics
technicians during the second half of 2025.Most mmWave samples were obtained within 150 meters (about 500
feet) of a mmWave transmission site, reflecting the spectrum’s
relatively diminutive coverage area. However, download speeds
over mmWave connections reached beyond 1 Gbps in some markets.Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Boston are top mmWave cities
for Verizon. Roughly 60% of RootMetrics’ outdoor testing
samples landed on Verizon’s mmWave in these cities in the
second half of 2025.
So mmWave is almost entirely a U.S. thing, and within the U.S. mostly a Verizon thing and sort of an AT&T thing.
Previously: A year ago I linked to an Ookla report on the iPhone 16e’s cellular performance, it being the first iPhone to ship with an Apple C-series modem. Performance was very good!
