Verizon once again has bragging rights in the wireless industry.

The carrier took top honors in a new ranking of nationwide network performance by market research firm RootMetrics.

Verizon (VZ, Tech30) ranked number one for reliability, speed, call and data performance, with AT&T (T, Tech30) a close second in all those categories. Those two firms held a significant advantage over third-ranked T-Mobile (TMUS) and fourth-ranked Sprint (S).

RootMetrics conducted the study by sending researchers to sites across the country to test network performance, collecting 5.6 million samples in total.
T-Mobile performed well at the city level, having focused its recent network upgrades on urban rather than rural areas.