What Is the Download and Upload Speed of 4g
How fast are 4G and 5G?
Y'all'd have to be living in a cave to not know 4G was faster than 3G, only merely how much faster is it really? And what almost 5G?
4G offers maximum real-globe download speeds upward to around 100Mbps, making it over 20 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 withal. Nosotros'll get into exactly how fast below, along with everything else you need to know about 4G and 5G speeds.
Theoretical speeds by network technology
To sympathise simply how fast 4G is, we need to put the engineering science into perspective confronting the older mobile network technologies, namely 3G and 3G HSPA+. To do so we'll look at the theoretical and real-world performance of 4G LTE, as well every bit looking at 4G speeds on the UK's mobile networks. We'll besides practice the aforementioned for 5G, which is another jump upwards in speed.
When it comes to measuring mobile network speeds at that place are two situations which are of involvement, theoretical and the real world.
Theoretical speeds are those which you can expect to obtain in a laboratory environment with perfect atmospheric condition, while real globe speeds are those you lot can expect to get 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 charge per unit at which mobile data is transferred from the net to your telephone 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 internet, for instance when uploading a photo to Facebook.
| Network Blazon | Download Speed | Upload Speed |
|---|---|---|
| 3G | 7.2Mbps | 2Mbps |
| 3G HSPA+ | 42Mbps | 22Mbps |
| 4G LTE | 150Mbps | 50Mbps |
| 4G LTE-Advanced | 300Mbps | 150Mbps |
| 5G | 10Gbps+ | 1Gbps |
| Network Type | Download Speed (Mbps) | Upload Speed (Mbps) |
|---|---|---|
| 3G | 3 | 0.four |
| 3G HSPA+ | 6 | 3 |
| 4G LTE | xx | v |
| 4G LTE-Avant-garde | 42 | 10 |
| 5G | 200 | 12-twenty |
3G is the slowest speed you'll unremarkably be browsing on. It has a typical real-globe download speed of 3Mbps and a theoretical maximum download speed of vii.2Mbps. If you desire to stream a video via 3G from YouTube for example y'all could exist waiting upward to ten seconds for information technology to load. While downloading a 500MB file can take around 22 minutes at typical speeds, with larger apps, movies and albums taking far longer notwithstanding.
Basic 3G's upload speed is a lot slower than its download speed, with typical speeds of 0.4Mbps and a theoretical limit of 2Mbps. In practice 3G is mostly fine for spider web browsing and social networks, y'all'll just have to look a few seconds for pages to load. It would have 3.v minutes to upload a 10MB file or epitome.
3G HSPA+ is an enhanced version of 3G, and it's the minimum speed you'll commonly get on a UK network. It offers typical download speeds of 6Mbps and a theoretical maximum of 42Mbps. With typical speeds you lot tin look streaming videos to load in around five seconds and medium sized apps to download in one minute plus, whilst the same 500MB file mentioned in a higher place would have 11 minutes to download.
3G HSPA+ provides upload speeds of effectually 3Mbps and the theoretical maximum is around 22Mbps. At boilerplate speeds a 10MB file or prototype would accept around 27 seconds to upload.
4G (4G LTE) offers typical download speeds of effectually 20Mbps and theoretical ones of 150Mbps. Then for case, yous could download a medium sized app in under 15 seconds or load a YouTube video in nether 2 seconds at typical speeds. The same 500MB file should exist downloadable in under 4 minutes.
4G appears to heave upload speeds to effectually 5Mbps on boilerplate, though most network tests don't dissever standard 4G from LTE-A, which you can read more than about below, making it hard to be certain. The aforementioned 10MB file or image would take just 16 seconds to upload at these speeds. At the very top cease yous can wait upload speeds of around 50Mbps.
4G LTE-Avant-garde 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 fractional coverage in a number of other Britain cities, under the name 4G+, while Vodafone has rolled it out to London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Nottingham, Bristol and numerous other locations.
3 has also now launched a 4G+ service, with coverage in major cities such equally London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
In fact, coverage on all these networks is probably far wider than the lists above, simply they oasis't revealed upwards to date lists of the places with LTE-Avant-garde.
With LTE-Advanced (also known every bit 4G+, LTE-A or four.5G) videos will load without a discernible pause and a 500MB file will download in under 2 minutes. In fact, it'southward even faster than many home broadband connections.
4G LTE-Avant-garde offers average upload speeds of likely effectually 10Mbps, though equally noted above, getting reliable data for LTE-A speeds as singled-out from standard 4G is catchy, and tin can theoretically reach 150Mbps. At 10Mbps the same 10MB file or prototype would take just 8 seconds to upload.
5G is the fastest mobile network technology available and at the fourth dimension of writing existent-world download speeds are averaging effectually 130-250Mbps, but networks claim pinnacle speeds of 1Gbps or more are already possible, and in futurity 5G could get far faster still, one time the infrastructure and technologies meliorate.
Using the middle of those average speeds, a 500MB file would be downloaded in 27 seconds. At that place's less data on upload speeds, just 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 accept 4-6 seconds.
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Latency
Download and upload speeds aren't the simply things that have been improved considering 4G too has a better response time than 3G – due to lower "latency". This means that a device continued to a 4G mobile network will get a quicker response to a request than the same device continued to a 3G mobile network.
The improved latency times, reduced from around 80 milliseconds (3G/3G HSPA+) to around 35-l milliseconds (4G), based on Opensignal data, may not seem that significant on paper. Yet, they can make a meaning departure when playing online games and streaming live video.
5G reduces latency further. Data from Ookla in 2021 suggested that 5G was offering an average latency of 29-33ms, while a late 2020 report from RootMetrics institute that in fundamental London, 3's 5G latency was just 17ms, and those figures could theoretically go down to every bit little as 1ms on 5G in future.
Great britain 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 4 major networks, simply nosotros've picked ii of the near telling ones, namely Opensignal's October 2020 and April 2020 Mobile Network Experience reports.
| Network | 4G Download/Upload speeds | 4G Latency (ms) |
|---|---|---|
| EE | 36.four/nine.1Mbps | 36.0 |
| Three | 22.two/8.0Mbps | 48.3 |
| Vodafone | 22.iv/viii.5Mbps | 39.0 |
| O2 | 18.ii/six.2Mbps | 38.1 |
The information above was collected by Opensignal, and in the case of download and upload speeds comes from an Oct 2020 study, and in the case of latency comes from April 2020 (as this wasn't included in the October one).
Note that there are newer Opensignal reports, but these combine speeds from all network types, so don't requite the states useful numbers for these purposes.
You can see EE is substantially ahead of rivals when it comes to boilerplate 4G download speeds and also the best for upload speeds and latency.
Vodafone comes second for download and upload speeds, followed past Iii, so O2 is in last place. However, O2 is 2d for latency, followed by Vodafone, then Three.
What about 5G?
| Network | 5G median download/upload speeds | 5G Latency (ms) |
|---|---|---|
| EE | 151/eighteen.42Mbps | 29 |
| Three | 231/xiii.65Mbps | 33 |
| Vodafone | 159/19.69Mbps | 29 |
| O2 | 155/11.74Mbps | 31 |
In that location haven't been quite as many studies into real-world 5G speeds at the time of writing, only 2021 data from Ookla found that 3's median 5G download speed was the highest at 231Mbps, Vodafone's was 159Mbps, O2'due south was 155Mbps, and EE's was 151Mbps. Equally for upload speeds, Vodafone'south median was the highest at xix.69Mbps, EE's was 18.42Mbps, Iii's was 13.65Mbps, and O2's was 11.74Mbps.
For latency, EE and Vodafone pb at 29ms, followed past 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, so most reports advise Three's average and median 5G speeds are the all-time.
One of the highest speeds we've seen though was for EE, which recorded a speed of 753Mbps in Indicate Topic tests.
Conclusion
EE is however clearly the fastest 4G network, with average speeds up to twice as fast equally the other iii networks according to tests. Vodafone and Three are now on a pretty level footing beyond the UK in terms of average 4G upload and download speeds, just O2 is notably slightly behind in tests.
As for 5G, information technology's early on days at that place and networks are likely to offer broadly similar speeds for a while. Three might have the edge, but we don't have enough information to be sure at the time of writing. The master 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/