For three months earlier this year, I put Verizon and AT&T’s 5G Home Internet to the test. There was one clear winner.
Background & Setup
First, let me say that I am in a fortunate enough position to be able to test the two services head-to-head on what I consider to be equal footing. I am roughly the same distance (but in different directions) to both a Verizon 5G tower, and a brand new AT&T tower (constructed in 2025). The AT&T tower is clearly visible out of the second-floor window where both modems were placed during testing, while the Verizon tower is far off center (75 degrees east). Both towers are approximately 500-600 feet away from my house with no obstructions between the tower and my window. Ideal conditions for 5G Home Internet.
The Verizon 5G modem was replaced in June of 2025, so is relatively recently hardware. The AT&T modem was acquired in April of 2026 from them. Both were connected via ethernet when being tested from a desktop computer, and Wi-Fi when tested from a phone or laptop.
In my market (Las Vegas, NV), Verizon owns 160MHz of C-Band spectrum, and AT&T owns a total of 150MHz of spectrum: 70MHz of 3.45GHz (including Dish’s spectrum it leased at the time and was in the process of acquiring) along with 80MHz of C-Band spectrum.
Expectations
Verizon advertises the service as having speeds of up to 300Mbps down and 20Mbps up.
AT&T advertising the service as having speeds of 300Mbps down and 30Mbps up.
Both providers do not have broadband caps, so there is no monthly transfer limit or overages. However the carriers can throttle or deprioritize your traffic if needed during peak times.
Performance
The Verizon performance matched their stated performance benchmarks the vast majority of the time I was using the service. I would regularly see speed tests at or slightly in excess of 300Mbps down and 20Mbps up.
Verizon also noticeably rate limits their 5G Home internet – on my iPhone I can get 5G speeds over 1,000Mbps (1Gbps) down. However in the exact same spot a minute later the fastest the 5G Home internet will go is slightly over 300Mbps.
AT&T had a more difficult time living up to their stated performance goals, especially for download speeds. Speeds typically ranged between 180-220Mbps down, lower than the 300 estimated in their Broadband Facts sticker. However upstream was very reliable – 25-40Mbps.
AT&T’s speeds were also inconsistent. When I first got the modem, the speeds were very strong – ranging from 300-500Mbps, occasionally even faster than that. However after a few weeks they started slowing down, and two months into testing I rarely saw any download speeds above 250Mbps. I attribute this to increased network load as AT&T is putting more Internet Air customers on the network. In July 2026 they announced that they doubled their subscriber count from 1 million to 2 million Air customers in about 12 months, twice as fast as they went from 0 to 1 million customers (24 months). There was also a door-to-door salesman in the neighborhood for AT&T Internet Air and Phone service when the new tower was activated. The tower and my modem were both brand new so I don’t think it was equipment at either end. Modem reboots and changing what few settings I could did not solve the problem of slowing speeds.
Pricing
AT&T’s price for their internet offering is relatively straightforward (as much as they can be these days). The price is starts at $65/mo, but drops to $55/mo including an auto-pay discount. It goes down to $35/mo with a qualifying AT&T mobile phone plan.
Verizon’s pricing is more complex. It used to be as simple as AT&T’s when I signed up in 2022 – $25/mo if you have a Verizon mobile phone plan and sign up for auto-pay. Now, there are three tiers of varying speeds which vary in price depending on auto-pay and if you have a qualifying Verizon Wireless service. It might just be easier to show this in a table…
| Verizon Plan | Price (Stand Alone) | Price (with VZ service) | Download/ Upload Speeds |
| 5G Home | $50/mo | $35/mo | 100Mbps / 10Mbps |
| 5G Home Pro | $60/mo | $45/mo | 150Mbps / 15Mbps |
| 5G Home Ultimate | $75/mo | $60/mo | 300Mbps / 20Mbps |
As of August 2026
On a dollar-for-dollar basis AT&T is the cheaper plan for the promised speeds. But the better deal comes down to who has the better signal and network capacity at your house.
Conclusion
When I am asked about who has the best mobile phone network is in 2026, I typically respond with “whoever has the best signal where you live and work.” That advice stands strong with 5G Home internet – if you get great signal in your area with your current mobile phone service you might want to take a look at their 5G Home internet. While the speeds aren’t as fast as cable or fiber, I’ve never had a problem with the throughput in the more than four years working from home with Verizon’s 5G. I’d switch to fiber if I had the chance, but since it isn’t available at my house. My only other high speed option is cable at $125/mo for gigabit speeds that have a 1.25TB/mo transfer cap, I’ll stick with much cheaper 5G Home Internet with no monthly data bandwidth caps or overages.
Final Note: I would have loved to also included T-Mobile 5G home internet in this comparison as well, especially since their tower is right next to Verizon’s tower about 600′ from my house. Unfortunately I was not able to sign up as there is a waiting list in my neighborhood.
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