How US 5G speed and availability compare to international coverage and performance

Ookla has released its latest report on the global state of 5G looking at the overall median speed, performance by country, availability, and more. While it’s not a surprise the US missed the top 10 countries based on fastest speed, it did take first place for one 5G metric.

Ookla, makers of the popular Speedtest app shared its new report on its blog:

“5G is no longer a new technology, however, consumers in many countries are still waiting to see the full benefits of 5G (or even to connect to 5G at all). We examined Speedtest Intelligence® data from Q3 2022 Speedtest® results to see how 5G performance has changed since last year, where download speeds are the fastest at the country level, and how satellite technologies are offering additional options to connect. We also looked at countries that don’t yet have 5G to understand where consumers are seeing improvements in 4G LTE access.”

Global 5G median speed

When looking at the big picture for Q3 2022 vs 2021, the median 5G global download speed only increased 1% to 168.27 Mbps. And the median 5G upload speed actually decreased by 12% to an unimpressive 18.71 Mbps.

Top 10 countries by 5G speed

The 10 countries with the fastest 5G performance saw some changes over the last year. South Korea and UAE now lead with median speeds of over 500 Mbps for downloads.

Meanwhile, Brazil and Bahrain rounded out the list with median 5G download speeds of just over 300 Mbps.

For perspective on 5G speeds in the US, Ookla’s last study found T-Mobile with a median download speed of 193.06, Verizon at 119.80, and AT&T at 81.22 Mbps.

US leads with strong 5G availability

However, the US continues an impressive lead regarding 5G availability. In fact, it’s the only country that offered consumers with 5G capable phones the ability to be connected to the latest-gen network more than 50% of the time.

That’s definitely thanks to T-Mobile leading the charge in 5G deployment with Verizon and AT&T following with their own C-band infrastructure launches.

• T-Mobile keeps lead for mobile performance; Spectrum wins fastest broadband in Ookla report
• Verizon 5G UWB now covers more than 175 million people following launch of free eSIM trials

Check out the full report from Ookla for more details on 5G challenges, countries that haven’t seen the standard arrive, and more.

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