Every year, PCMag sends drivers out with a quartet of smartphones strapped into a rental car, each running one of the big four cellular carriers and testing upload and download speeds all across the country. In today's edition of The Why Axis, we're breaking down this year's Fastest Mobile Networks results. Verizon Wireless took the top nationwide spot with its fifth straight win. T-Mobile once again came in second and stopped Verizon from a clean sweep by winning the Southeast region, with AT&T coming in third and Sprint bringing up the rear. Overall, network speeds continued to accelerate this year as the carriers gear up to begin rolling out 5G at the end of this year and early 2019. Verizon's average speeds nationwide were 49.7Mbps for downloads and 19.0Mbps upload, though the carrier notched a blistering high of 354.9 Mbps down. AT&T had the fastest upload speed at 66.0Mbps, but its average was only 13.9Mbps. T-Mobile's uploads were the most consistently fast, with 91 percent of uploads above 2Mbps. Some of the more telling stats are average ping time and reliability percentages. Verizon's was only 27.78 milliseconds, while AT&T and Sprint were both over 41ms. That means incrementally longer data load times for users. On the reliability front, all four carriers were grouped between 93-96 percent, but ultimately Verizon's 99 overall speed score was the runaway winner this year. Will the advent of 5G be the disruptor to break Verizon's streak or only further cement its dominance? Check back next year to find out.

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