The latest Opensignal analysis report shows how ten 5G operators in four leading countries — Australia, South Korea, the US and the UK – have performed. Verizon is the leader in 5G download speed.
All ten operators have offered much faster speeds for their users on 5G compared with 4G, with speeds between 18.4 times and 1.7 times faster on 5G.
Average 5G download speeds varied widely, ranging between 506.1 Mbps on Verizon down to 47 Mbps on T-Mobile US.
The time that users spent connected to 5G — 5G Availability — also varied greatly between operators, reaching a high of 19.8 percent of the time on T-Mobile US, indicating that while T-Mobile 5G speeds may not be the fastest, their users will experience the higher 5G speeds considerably more often than the users of other 5G operators.
5G download speed differs based on the type of 5G spectrum each operator has used. Verizon uses mmWave spectrum and this is the main reason for the extremely high speeds 5G users have observed on its network.
5G users of T-Mobile US and AT&T had the slowest 5G speeds because both operators have primarily relied upon low-band spectrum re-purposed from 4G services — 600MHz for T-Mobile US and 850MHz for AT&T. Both 600MHz and 850MHz offer good 5G coverage but less capacity and slower average speeds. All the other operators relied on mid-band spectrum for their 5G services.
Australia’s Telstra, all three of South Korea’s operators, Sprint in the U.S. and the U.K.’s EE and Vodafone have all deployed 5G on mid-band spectrum. All three Korean operators have offered 5G speed of over 200 Mbps. Sprint’s 5G customers received 114.2 Mbps speed. SK Telecom’s 5G download speed was 3.5 times faster.
T-Mobile US users spent the most time connected to 5G globally, with a 5G Availability of 19.8 percent. All three South Korean operators had 5G Availability ranging from 15.4 percent to 12.6 percent.
