Opensignal’s latest analysis demonstrates that 5G has “greatly improved the real-world speeds” that users experience. Even more significantly, 5G offers faster average download speeds than WiFi in 7 out of 8 leading 5G countries.
4G is faster than WiFi in only two of the countries — Australia & Saudi Arabia. The Opensignal report said the US was the only exception, where WiFi continued to offer a small edge over 5G because of the large number of 5G users connecting on widely available, but relatively slow, 5G networks that are deployed using low spectrum bands.
In most countries, initial 5G services had been offered exclusively on fast high capacity mid-band spectrum — around 3.5Ghz, sometimes called the C-band — but in the US, T-Mobile & AT&T had launched their main service on low-band spectrum which had less capacity, but was better suited to offering wide coverage.
The Opensignal team felt that in the US as elsewhere, carriers will increasingly offer 5G on higher mid-band frequency bands, & once they do, average US 5G speeds will rise significantly.
Image credit: Opensignal
