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US Rank Drops To 55th In 4G LTE Speeds

Posted by timothy on from the double-nickels-on-the-dime dept.

alphadogg writes: The U.S. has fallen to No. 55 in LTE performance as speeds rise rapidly in countries that have leapfrogged some early adopters of the popular cellular system. The average download speed on U.S. 4G networks inched up to 10Mbps (bits per second) in the June-August quarter, according to research company OpenSignal. That was an improvement from 9Mbps in the previous quarter, but the country's global ranking fell from 43rd as users in other countries enjoyed much larger gains.

37 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. USA! USA! by PvtVoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    In your face, Indonesia!

    1. Re:USA! USA! by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Am I the only person that's baud of this

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  2. i can't LTE by turkeydance · · Score: 2

    55!

    1. Re:i can't LTE by TWX · · Score: 2

      Sorry, I tried to watch that music video but it kept pausing to buffer... Maybe I'll try again when I'm at home on the WIFI...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:i can't LTE by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

      If you change the units to centimeters/hour, it's all good.
      It's all about "learned helplessness" these days.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    3. Re:i can't LTE by TWX · · Score: 1

      "I can't drive 8851392" doesn't have the same ring to it...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    4. Re:i can't LTE by halfEvilTech · · Score: 1

      we may be 55th in speed but due to hard work our carriers are #1 in Prices charged (in their favor)

    5. Re:i can't LTE by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

      It's all about that base, 'bout that base. No mantissa.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  3. On the other hand... by pushing-robot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    USA is near the top in LTE penetration. It's easy to have high speeds when you've got the tower to yourself...

    --
    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    1. Re:On the other hand... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Funny

      USA is near the top in LTE penetration

      So, everybody is getting screwed by the carriers then?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:On the other hand... by danbob999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      pretty sure LTE penetration is high in South Korea and they still have high speed.

    3. Re:On the other hand... by danbob999 · · Score: 2

      The US is #10 for coverage:

      Subscribers in the U.S. are on LTE 78 percent of the time, on average, making the country No. 10 for what OpenSignal calls "time coverage."

    4. Re:On the other hand... by TWX · · Score: 1

      Just trying to parse this...

      Are you saying that because there are several competing cell carriers that either share physical tower space or have to worry about spectrum and radiation patterns, that it makes it harder to get high speed connectivity because of congested airwaves?

      Last time I checked the various companies didn't use each others' spectrum except under-license.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:On the other hand... by pushing-robot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There are several potential reasons for high average speeds, including:

      * The country has built an excellent LTE network.

      * The network is underutilized because LTE phones or plans are expensive or not yet widely adopted.

      * The network has limited coverage; a country with fast LTE in cities and 2G in sparser districts will counterintuitively have a higher average LTE speed than another country with fast LTE in cities and slower LTE in the back country.

      * The country is as a whole densely populated with few rural areas pulling down the average speed.

      In short, 'average LTE speed' is a rather useless datum without the necessary context.

      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    6. Re: On the other hand... by adolf · · Score: 1

      Indeed. And when LTE was still in its infancy here in the States, I regularly saw 25Mbps on Verizon.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    7. Re:On the other hand... by tsotha · · Score: 1

      As long as you live in Seoul, sure.

    8. Re:On the other hand... by default+luser · · Score: 1

      Right, what's the big deal here? With 10Mbps average, you can more than saturate a crappy mobile CPU chugging while loading a modern javascript webpage. You won't get any faster load times than on Wifi!

      I know that I can't tell the difference between 10 and 100 Mbps for basic web browsing, or watching video. So long as you typically get 10 Mbps, is being "slower than other countries" all that bad?

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

    9. Re:On the other hand... by gmack · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or in most of the other cities, or along the highways between the cities. South Korea's coverage seems to be rather good actually

    10. Re:On the other hand... by danbob999 · · Score: 1

      Isn't 10 Mbps an average? That also means that sometimes you get much less.
      Also, for tethering more than 10 Mbps can be useful.

    11. Re: On the other hand... by Chewbacon · · Score: 1

      Hell yeah. Other countries are just the tip with LTE. USA! USA! USA!

      --
      Chewbacon
      The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
  4. maybe he should take it AAMCO by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    I don't get it, why is gramps boasting about not being able to drive 15 miles below the speed limit? Boomers are dumbf.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  5. Sure 55 *sounds* bad... by The-Ixian · · Score: 3, Funny

    But, hey, we are still in the top 1/3 out of ALL countries in the world...

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  6. Size Matters by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

    I keep saying this, but a small European Country having really good stats, isn't the same as the USA having mediocre stats. Have you seen the size of the US vs Europe?

    https://becovegan.files.wordpr...

    However, since I don't have a list of countries that beat the US, my assumption is that at least some of them are european.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    1. Re:Size Matters by Teun · · Score: 2

      It's got nothing to do with the size of a country.
      It does have everything to do with the population density and the populated parts (especially the coasts) of the US are no different to certain EU countries.
      The US does have vast areas that are sparsely populated were coverage is going to be expensive, such areas are less prevalent in western Europe.
      I am not sure how they calculated but am fairly sure that availability is going to add up more in the denser populated areas.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    2. Re:Size Matters by avandesande · · Score: 1

        300,000 cell sites in USA and about 75,000 in Brazil, so penetration is not comparable.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    3. Re:Size Matters by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      That would be applicable if carriers tried to cover an entire country with a single tower. Nope, they do what they do everywere in the world. More towers in more populated places, fewer in less populate areas. The total density of the USA isn't that low, and most of the people and coverage is concentrated in cities, just like the rest of the world.

      There is no "size" issue.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    4. Re:Size Matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nice job leaving HALF of Norway and Sweden out, and whole Finland out! (which is size of the whole damn east coast!!)... btw, Finland has 98% 3G coverage (and is most loosely populated country in EU) and 4G catching up with that pretty fast....

    5. Re:Size Matters by dave420 · · Score: 1

      You keep making this mistake. That is not Europe overlaid on the map, but parts of the EU. I know, I know - anything to stop the hurt of admitting the US isn't the best at everything. Oh noes!

    6. Re:Size Matters by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Have you seen the size of the US vs approximately 1/3 of Europe?

      TFTFY.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    7. Re:Size Matters by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Look socialism/gun control/etc. works so well among these 100 people that all look and act the same, why can't it work in American?

      San Marino and Liechtenstein are not typical European nations.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  7. Typo by bigfinger76 · · Score: 1

    10Mbps = megabits per second, NOT bits per second.

  8. How was the survey conducted? by aristotle-dude · · Score: 1

    Here in Canada, I am getting 27.7 Mbps down and 22 Mbps UP on Rogers on LTE and then there are areas of the city with LTE-Advanced.

    --
    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
    1. Re:How was the survey conducted? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 2

      I live in a semi-rural area outside of Brisbane and just pulled 26.87 Mbps down 21.89 Mbps on Testra according to ookla Speedtest. At the same time my ADSL is synced at 22.696 down .940 up. I'm lucky though as the digital rim is literally at the end of my driveway.

    2. Re:How was the survey conducted? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      Samford Valley. I am one of the lucky ones here as lots of people are on wireless or have 11km cable runs. I just happen to have a digital rim at the end of my driveway so I'm on 140m cable length.

  9. 10..9 mbs. how about ZERO mbs by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

    In the dallas fort worth airport hyatt many brands of phones get no reception at all. it's a joke.

    It's annoying to go from the "modern world" back to the 1980s when you travel about 10 miles.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  10. Re: Speed vs Availibility. by Kumiorava · · Score: 1

    For most part 3g speeds in Finland are faster than the average 4g speed in US...

  11. Rank is meaningless by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If #1-54 have average LTE speeds of 11 Mbps, then 10 Mbps is not that bad.
    If #1-54 have average LTE speeds of 90 Mbps, then 10 Mbps sucks.

    Rank on an arbitrary list is meaningless. If you want to compare against a distribution, compare to the distribution itself. Not some arbitrary index. The distribution is linked in TFA and is vastly more informative than TFA or TFS. In fact it's one of the best interactive data presentations I've ever seen. It should've been linked as TFA, not some article talking about it.

    Most of the countries are clustered between 8-18 Mbps. #43 (the previous U.S. rank) is 13 Mbps. If the U.S. were to increase its LTE speed by 50% to 15 Mbps it would jump to #28. And if it were to double its speed to 20 Mbps, it would jump to #12.