T-Mobile is one of the largest wireless carriers in the United States, with over 100 million subscibers, and its acquisition of Sprint in April last year contributed significantly to growth. The company is no stranger to bold marketing claims, and its most recent advertizing tactic comes in the form of a "live" speed test billboard in Norfolk, VA.

The billboard shows you 5G network speeds of major carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, and of course, T-Mobile. According to the sign, T-Mobile's 5G speeds are clocking up around 600 Mbps, Verizon's are an order of magnitude slower, and AT&T isn't even offering 5G there. T-Mobile says that the measurements for all three carriers are done using Ookla Speedtest on Samsung Galaxy S21 phones, assigned comparable data plans to help level the playing field. Still, you can imagine that the carrier has likely knowingly selected a location that will show off the most favorable comparison. It's also worth pointing out that while this is supposed to be real-time speed info, that isn't exactly the case. The tests are actually run hourly on the Samsung phones in a T-Mobile store located just a few doors down the road.

Though the billboard shows a huge disparity between T-Mobile's speeds and that of Verizon and AT&T, you may want to take this rather "clever" marketing approach with a grain of salt as the 5G battle between the big three is currently closer than you might think. So far it's just got this one, but T-Mobile hints at the possibility of more speed-test billboards at other locations in the future.