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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.

8 of 70 comments (clear)

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

    In your face, Indonesia!

  2. 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 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?
    4. 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

  3. 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.
  4. 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.