Opensignal Compares UK 5G and 4G Mobile with 100 Countries

The latest 2020 State of Mobile Networks report from Opensignal has ranked the United Kingdom 36th out of 100 countries for its average mobile broadband download speed (22.9Mbps) and 31st for 4G network availability (89.2%). Meanwhile, one year after deployments first began, the impact of 5G remains small.

As usual this report is based on crowd-sourced data that has been gathered from a total of 43,338,654 devices (Android and iOS Smartphones etc.) and involved 87,524,176,592 measurements between 1st January and 30th March 2020.

Admittedly there are always some caveats to this sort of information. For example, app-based crowd-sourced data could be impacted by any limitations of the devices being used, which at the same time removes the ability to adopt a common type of hardware in order to establish a solid baseline of performance. Nevertheless Opensignal are one of the better outfits at putting such data together.

Overall mobile networks in the UK saw their average mobile download speeds increase by just 1.1Mbps to 22.9Mbps (+5.2%) during the past year. Meanwhile average 4G availability across the 100 countries tracked (weighted by population) has risen by 6.1% to 86.8%, but the UK alone saw a smaller 5.3% increase to 89.2% (largely because our roll-out is now at a more mature stage).

At this point it’s worth splitting out the small number of countries, including the UK, where early deployments of 5G mobile technology have begun. The results unsurprisingly show that 5G has yet to have a tangible impact on overall average speeds for most of the related countries, which is not as surprising as it may at first seem.

The reason for so little change, at least in the UK, is because at present 5G networks are still in their infancy, lack some key features and have only very limited levels of coverage (mostly centred around busy urban areas). At the same time very few consumers have a 5G capable device and Ofcom have yet to release enough radio spectrum in order to support the best performance.

However we know from Opensignal’s other data that average 5G speeds in the UK are about 138Mbps when consumers are actually able to access them, without 4G or 3G dragging the figures down (here). Now if you aren’t too bothered about having to squint with your eyes then here’s a summary of the latest availability and speeds data.