As we close out another Winter Olympics, operators south of the (Canadian) border are in the thick of their own quest for the gold … network performance and customer satisfaction.

It is a very public competition. During Vancouver, if the mobile operators and their ad campaigns have not yet eclipsed auto ad spending, they sure were a close second.

 

So, let’s look at the different events in our 1st Annual Mobile Olympics, spanning 10 events, and how the different operators stack up in the medal count:

There we have it…. In front (despite common gripes about network performance due to those rude iPhone (News - Alert) subscribers), we have AT&T with 4 golds, 2 silvers, and 4 bronzes and Verizon in second with 4 golds, 3 silvers, and 2 bronzes, effectively tied. Sprint takes third place with 2 golds, 2 silvers, and 3 bronzes. T-Mobile (News - Alert) was in last place due to network coverage, with the exception of customer satisfaction, where they have a good showing. On 3G coverage, we’ll give the operators the benefit of the doubt that they properly characterize their subscriber and geographic reach.

 

Note that there is yet another interesting parallel to the Olympics. For those of you that followed with the ski jump competition or downhill skiing, location, and even the time of the day played a major role in determining the winners and losers. It didn’t matter if you were the gold medalist at some World Cup competition in the French Alps. Whistler, with its ever-changing weather, created unpredictability and turned winners into losers (and vice-versa). The same holds with wireless performance. Move the competition from Denver on a Tuesday afternoon to San Francisco on a Friday just after closing, and gold’s quickly turn into bronzes (or possibly a “DNF” – Did Not Finish). Look under the covers of the BGR reports, and you’ll see vastly different performance and reliability figures from one city to the next.

 

So, Citius, Altius, Fortius…. I’d like to invite all of the operators of the world to strive for a gold medal performance, across all events and venues.