April Report From Ookla: ‘A Return to mmWave 5G’
Ookla reports mmWave 5G remains mostly a U.S. and Verizon phenomenon. Verizon's mmWave appeared in 91 markets in late 2025, up from 75, while AT&T and T-Mobile lagged far behind. Speeds topped 1 Gbps, but coverage was limited to roughly 150 meters from transmission sites.
Background
- mmWave (millimeter wave) is a high-frequency wireless spectrum band (typically 24–100 GHz) used for 5G. It offers extremely fast speeds (over 1 Gbps) but has very short range, poor building penetration, and requires dense deployment of small cell towers — making it expensive and practical mostly in dense urban areas.
- Most countries globally prioritized "mid-band" spectrum (e.g., C-band around 3.5 GHz) for 5G, which offers a better balance of speed and coverage. The U.S., and particularly Verizon, placed an early, heavy bet on mmWave.
- Ookla is the company behind Speedtest, a widely used internet performance testing tool. Its RootMetrics division conducts professional drive-testing of mobile networks. This article is from Ookla's own blog, summarizing internal data.
- The post is from July 2026 but references data from late 2025, showing that mmWave remains a niche, U.S.-focused technology — mostly deployed by Verizon, occasionally by AT&T, and barely at all by T-Mobile.