5G speeds in the US rank as dead last among early adopters

US carriers have been talking a big game about 5G for years now, claiming it is “lightning fast”Upload and download speeds could herald everything from driverless cars and smart cities to downloading HD movies less than a minute. This has clearly not happened, and until relatively recently, most ordinary consumers could not even access rudimentary 5G services even if they wanted to. Fortunately, that seems to be changing in the United States.

A new one report published by Ookla placed the United States at the very top of a list of 40 countries in terms of 5G availability. To establish this, Ookla tested to see what percentage of users with 5G devices actually spent the majority of their time on 5G during the third quarter. Under that criterion, the United States was ranked number one with 49.2% availability.

But hold on, do not whip your red out, white, and blue foam yet, that’s not all good news.

Actual download and upload speeds (in other words, the whole point) of 5G networks still vary considerably from country to country, according to the report. Although the United States ranked first in terms of accessibility, its actual download speeds were among the worst in the early 5G users. Ookla placed the median 5G download speeds of 93.73 Mbps in the United States, far lower than the UK’s 184.2 Mbps median and still far lower than South Korea, which led the pack at 492.48 Mbps. The US also placed around the same relative position for upload speeds.

And while U.S. wireless customers can take comfort in knowing that they’re at the top of the availability list, the list itself is unimpressive as a whole, especially in terms of the types of coverage needed for 5G’s most ambitious promises.

A separate accessibility analysis from OpenSingal earlier this year measured 5G availability among major carriers and determined T-Mobile testers was associated with 5G only 34.7% of the time. It’s not great, but it’s phenomenal compared to testers from AT&T and Verizon, who were only connected to 5G 16.4% and 9.7% of the time, respectively. according to the analysis. Such figures have led critics such as Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld to describe 5G to Reuters which is still in, “fake it until you get on stage.”

5G availability and increased speeds can both be crucial factors in getting more users to hop on the 5G train. Although the airlines have liberal invested billion ind 5G network extensions over over the past few years, this investment has not made much of a significant difference to consumers. In general, the majority still do not feel compelled to spend their own money on 5G. That point was born out in a 2020 JD Power examination shared with Insider Intelligence, which found that over half (53%) of US adults said they would not pay a single dollar more for 5G. Only 7% of respondents said they would pay $ 20 more for the service.