Benchmarking the global 5G user experience

For the first time, we are now comparing 5G users’ overall experience across 12 of the world’s leading 5G markets. Globally, our 5G users in Saudi Arabia see the fastest overall average download speed with a Download Speed Experience of 144.5 Mbps ahead of Canada’s 5G users in second place with 90.4 Mbps. Strikingly, 5G Users in the country with the highest adoption of 5G to date, South Korea, rank just third.

The US's average 5G speed is 1.8 times higher than the country's average 4G download speed of 28.9Mbps. User tests in neighboring Canada produced a 4G average of 59.4Mbps and a 5G average of 178.1Mbps. Taiwan and Australia both produced 5G averages above 200Mbps, while South Korea and Saudi Arabia produced the highest 5G speeds at 312.7Mbps and 414.2Mbps, respectively.

The modest 5G Download Speeds in the US are due to a combination of the limited amount of new mid-band 5G spectrum that is available and the popularity of low-band spectrum – T-Mobile’s 600MHz and AT&T’s 850MHz – which offer excellent availability and reach but lower average speeds than the 3.5GHz mid-band spectrum used as the main 5G band in every country outside of the US. However, Verizon’s mmWave-based 5G service offers very considerably faster average 5G Download Speeds of 494. 7 Mbps in our recent U.S. report, which is faster than the average 5G download speeds Opensignal has seen on any operator, or in any country to date including Saudi Arabia. 

Smaller geographies like Kuwait or Hong Kong have an advantage over large countries like Australia or the US in offering users high levels of 5G Availability which makes the achievements of operators in both Australia and the US — powering their 5G users’ experience ahead of the UK, and Switzerland — all the more impressive.