The last thing anyone wants from their mobile phone company is dropped calls and lethargic data connections. Now, Verizon has pulled essentially even with AT&T for best overall mobile performance in metro Atlanta, according to a third-party mobile analytics firm that tests around the nation.

And T-Mobile is becoming a tougher performance alternative to both of those bigger rivals locally, according to RootMetric’s latest results. Sprint was at the back of the pack among the four companies in the analysis, which doesn’t take into account prices charged by the companies.

Using indoor, outdoor and on-the-road tests, RootMetrics studies such things as upload and download speeds, dropped and blocked calls and texting performance involving more than 101,000 tests. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution compared those results with RootMetric’s last local results nearly a year ago.

AT&T had been at the top of the heap, but Verizon now shares that spot locally, according to the analytics firm. AT&T held a small lead in reliability, while Verizon had a slight advantage on speed.

Last year, T-Mobile had been in the third or fourth spots in measures broken out by RootMetrics. But this year, T-Mobile bumped ahead of AT&T in speed and in data performance and ahead of Verizon in text performance.

In separate tests of mobile data performance at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, AT&T and Verizon got top billing, according to RootMetrics.

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