How Fast Are Uploads Over Cell Phone Service
How fast are 4G and 5G?
You'd have to exist living in a cave to not know 4G was faster than 3G, merely merely how much faster is it really? And what well-nigh 5G?
4G offers maximum real-world download speeds upward to effectually 100Mbps, making it over xx times faster than 3G.
Theoretical maximum 4G speeds are significantly higher at 300Mbps, although such speeds are only achievable in controlled laboratory environments.
5G is far faster still. Nosotros'll get into exactly how fast below, along with everything else you lot need to know nigh 4G and 5G speeds.
Theoretical speeds by network technology
To sympathise but how fast 4G is, we need to put the technology into perspective against the older mobile network technologies, namely 3G and 3G HSPA+. To do so we'll look at the theoretical and real-world operation of 4G LTE, as well as looking at 4G speeds on the UK's mobile networks. We'll likewise do the same for 5G, which is another jump upward in speed.
When it comes to measuring mobile network speeds there are 2 situations which are of interest, theoretical and the real world.
Theoretical speeds are those which yous can expect to obtain in a laboratory environment with perfect conditions, while real world speeds are those you can expect to become everyday using your phone on a real mobile network.
To benchmark network speeds, we are interested in download and upload speeds.
Download speeds are the rate at which mobile data is transferred from the internet to your phone or other mobile device, for example when downloading a video. While upload speeds are the rate that mobile data is transferred from your phone or other mobile device to the net, for example when uploading a photo to Facebook.
| Network Type | Download Speed | Upload Speed |
|---|---|---|
| 3G | vii.2Mbps | 2Mbps |
| 3G HSPA+ | 42Mbps | 22Mbps |
| 4G LTE | 150Mbps | 50Mbps |
| 4G LTE-Advanced | 300Mbps | 150Mbps |
| 5G | 10Gbps+ | 1Gbps |
| Network Blazon | Download Speed (Mbps) | Upload Speed (Mbps) |
|---|---|---|
| 3G | iii | 0.4 |
| 3G HSPA+ | 6 | 3 |
| 4G LTE | 20 | 5 |
| 4G LTE-Advanced | 42 | ten |
| 5G | 200 | 12-20 |
3G is the slowest speed you'll unremarkably be browsing on. It has a typical real-world download speed of 3Mbps and a theoretical maximum download speed of 7.2Mbps. If y'all want to stream a video via 3G from YouTube for example you could exist waiting upward to 10 seconds for it to load. While downloading a 500MB file can accept effectually 22 minutes at typical speeds, with larger apps, movies and albums taking far longer all the same.
Bones 3G'southward upload speed is a lot slower than its download speed, with typical speeds of 0.4Mbps and a theoretical limit of 2Mbps. In exercise 3G is by and large fine for web browsing and social networks, you lot'll just have to wait a few seconds for pages to load. Information technology would take three.5 minutes to upload a 10MB file or prototype.
3G HSPA+ is an enhanced version of 3G, and it'due south the minimum speed you'll usually get on a Uk network. Information technology offers typical download speeds of 6Mbps and a theoretical maximum of 42Mbps. With typical speeds you tin expect streaming videos to load in around 5 seconds and medium sized apps to download in ane minute plus, whilst the same 500MB file mentioned in a higher place would take xi minutes to download.
3G HSPA+ provides upload speeds of around 3Mbps and the theoretical maximum is around 22Mbps. At average speeds a 10MB file or image would have around 27 seconds to upload.
4G (4G LTE) offers typical download speeds of around 20Mbps and theoretical ones of 150Mbps. And so for case, you could download a medium sized app in under 15 seconds or load a YouTube video in nether two seconds at typical speeds. The same 500MB file should exist downloadable in under 4 minutes.
4G appears to boost upload speeds to around 5Mbps on average, though almost network tests don't separate standard 4G from LTE-A, which you can read more about below, making it hard to be sure. The same 10MB file or image would have just 16 seconds to upload at these speeds. At the very top end you can expect upload speeds of around 50Mbps.
4G LTE-Advanced is a faster version of 4G with typical real-world download speeds of 42Mbps and theoretical limits of 300Mbps.
EE has launched this service in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, with partial coverage in a number of other U.k. cities, under the name 4G+, while Vodafone has rolled it out to London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Nottingham, Bristol and numerous other locations.
Iii has also at present launched a 4G+ service, with coverage in major cities such as London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
In fact, coverage on all these networks is probably far wider than the lists above, but they oasis't revealed up to engagement lists of the places with LTE-Advanced.
With LTE-Avant-garde (also known as 4G+, LTE-A or 4.5G) videos will load without a discernible pause and a 500MB file will download in under 2 minutes. In fact, it's even faster than many dwelling house broadband connections.
4G LTE-Advanced offers average upload speeds of likely around 10Mbps, though as noted above, getting reliable data for LTE-A speeds as distinct from standard 4G is tricky, and can theoretically reach 150Mbps. At 10Mbps the same 10MB file or paradigm would accept simply 8 seconds to upload.
5G is the fastest mobile network technology available and at the time of writing real-world download speeds are averaging around 130-250Mbps, but networks claim peak speeds of 1Gbps or more than are already possible, and in future 5G could get far faster still, once the infrastructure and technologies ameliorate.
Using the middle of those boilerplate speeds, a 500MB file would be downloaded in 27 seconds. At that place's less data on upload speeds, simply a 2021 Ookla report suggests they average between around 12Mbps and 20Mbps, depending on network. At those speeds the uploading of a 10MB file would take 4-6 seconds.
| | 4GB information Unlimited mins Unlimited texts | £6 a month View Deal |
| | 30GB data Unlimited mins Unlimited texts | £x a calendar month View Deal |
 | Unlimited information Unlimited mins Unlimited texts | £16 a month View Deal |
| Compare SIM Only deals | ||
.png)
Latency
Download and upload speeds aren't the only things that have been improved because 4G besides has a better response time than 3G – due to lower "latency". This means that a device connected to a 4G mobile network will go a quicker response to a asking than the same device connected to a 3G mobile network.
The improved latency times, reduced from around lxxx milliseconds (3G/3G HSPA+) to around 35-l milliseconds (4G), based on Opensignal data, may non seem that significant on paper. However, they can make a significant difference when playing online games and streaming alive video.
5G reduces latency farther. Data from Ookla in 2021 suggested that 5G was offering an boilerplate latency of 29-33ms, while a late 2020 report from RootMetrics plant that in central London, Three's 5G latency was just 17ms, and those figures could theoretically go down to as little as 1ms on 5G in future.
U.k. network 4G speeds - which UK network offers the fastest 4G?
In that location take been a number of studies conducted to compare 4G speeds on the UK's iv major networks, simply nosotros've picked two of the about telling ones, namely Opensignal's October 2020 and April 2020 Mobile Network Experience reports.
| Network | 4G Download/Upload speeds | 4G Latency (ms) |
|---|---|---|
| EE | 36.4/9.1Mbps | 36.0 |
| Three | 22.2/8.0Mbps | 48.three |
| Vodafone | 22.4/8.5Mbps | 39.0 |
| O2 | 18.2/6.2Mbps | 38.ane |
The data in a higher place was nerveless past Opensignal, and in the example of download and upload speeds comes from an October 2020 written report, and in the case of latency comes from Apr 2020 (as this wasn't included in the Oct ane).
Annotation that there are newer Opensignal reports, but these combine speeds from all network types, so don't give u.s. useful numbers for these purposes.
You can see EE is essentially ahead of rivals when it comes to average 4G download speeds and also the all-time for upload speeds and latency.
Vodafone comes 2nd for download and upload speeds, followed by Iii, and so O2 is in final place. However, O2 is second for latency, followed by Vodafone, and then Iii.
What almost 5G?
| Network | 5G median download/upload speeds | 5G Latency (ms) |
|---|---|---|
| EE | 151/xviii.42Mbps | 29 |
| Three | 231/13.65Mbps | 33 |
| Vodafone | 159/xix.69Mbps | 29 |
| O2 | 155/11.74Mbps | 31 |
There haven't been quite every bit many studies into real-world 5G speeds at the fourth dimension of writing, but 2021 data from Ookla found that Three'southward median 5G download speed was the highest at 231Mbps, Vodafone'due south was 159Mbps, O2's was 155Mbps, and EE'south was 151Mbps. Every bit for upload speeds, Vodafone's median was the highest at 19.69Mbps, EE's was xviii.42Mbps, Three's was 13.65Mbps, and O2's was 11.74Mbps.
For latency, EE and Vodafone lead at 29ms, followed by O2 at 31ms, then Three at 33ms.
Point Topic meanwhile points to an average 5G download speed of 158.7Mbps for Iii, 149.9Mbps for EE, 143.6Mbps for Vodafone, and 115.7Mbps for O2, and so about reports advise Three's average and median 5G speeds are the best.
1 of the highest speeds we've seen though was for EE, which recorded a speed of 753Mbps in Signal Topic tests.
Determination
EE is even so conspicuously the fastest 4G network, with average speeds upwardly to twice equally fast as the other 3 networks according to tests. Vodafone and Three are now on a pretty level footing across the Britain in terms of average 4G upload and download speeds, simply O2 is notably slightly behind in tests.
As for 5G, it's early days at that place and networks are likely to offer broadly similar speeds for a while. Three might accept the edge, just we don't have enough data to be sure at the time of writing. The chief factor initially will be coverage though, and on that front all of the networks are improving quickly.
Source: https://www.4g.co.uk/how-fast-is-4g/