VIDEO: Who has the best 3G network?

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In another seemingly last-minute defense against the launch of Apple Inc.’s 3G iPhone, Sprint Nextel Corp. said it has five times more 3G mobile broadband coverage than AT&T Mobility’s 3G network, based on square miles, a claim backed by Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse during a keynote address at June’s NXTcomm08 event. When pressed on the exact number of miles, Jackie Bostick, communications manager at Sprint Nextel, said the number was based on the carrier’s proprietary coverage estimates.

Shortly after, AT&T Mobility released an announcement claiming to have the fastest 3G broadband network using data gathered from independent wireless research firms. But AT&T Mobility declined to name those companies. The iPhone-equipped carrier also said it plans to extend its network to 350 metropolitan markets by year’s end. Mark Siegel, executive director of media relations for AT&T Mobility, said the carrier’s UMTS/HSPA network is currently available in 296 major metro areas.

“By the end of this year, we [will have] invested $20 billion in the network to continue to build out the 3G network and to improve its quality and increase speeds,” Siegel said. “We have the largest network anywhere.”

AT&T Mobility also boasted about its roaming capabilities, noting it has roaming deals in 200 countries and has more 3G roaming ability than any other carrier.

Verizon Wireless jumped into the debate boasting in a release that the carrier’s 3G network covers 80% of the U.S. population, the most people of any wireless service provider. Tom Pica, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, said the carrier measured its coverage in potential customers covered, and counts 245 million pops covered with its 3G service.

Sprint Nextel measures its network in total cities and airports with service; saying it reaches 246 million pops in 16,022 cities and 1,506 airports.

(Click here to download an EV-DO coverage map, and click here to download an HSPA coverage map. Maps courtesy American Roamer.)

Splitting hairs

Current Analysis’s William Ho said Sprint Nextel may be right about the largest coverage, but the other carriers could be right too.
“It comes down to comparing it, apples to apples,” Ho said.

Ho said determining the size of 3G network coverage is difficult because it can be measured different ways, including through roaming deals.

In 2006, Sprint Nextel established a roaming agreement with Alltel Communications L.L.C.., and although the deal was not exclusive, it provided both carriers with a vastly expanded network footprint.

“If you have broader network coverage, you can say ‘our network is bigger’,” Ho said. “Then you go into Verizon Wireless and their native footprint is bigger than Sprint’s but Sprint can argue that with [its] Rev. A roaming relationship, it is bigger.”

And because expansion of the 3G network is nowhere near finished, Ho said that also factors into the difficulty of identifying whose network wins the size race. There are different press releases and announcements everyday about a new area with 3G network and it makes the measuring somewhat impossible.

“3G is in the buildout stage and nobody’s really finished,” Ho said. “It’s an ongoing thing.”

So to answer the question who’s biggest? Every carrier is, in a different definition. At this point, AT&T Mobility is the only carrier to make the claim of being the fastest, but it’s likely that won’t be for long. In the world of wireless, a competitor is always only a step behind.