OpenSignal report shows U.S. LTE networks near top in coverage, near bottom in speed
Following up on a report released earlier this week ranking network performance of the country’s four nationwide operators, OpenSignal pulled the lens back a bit on a world view of network performance showing U.S. networks falling short on speed.
The report found U.S.-based LTE networks provided average download speeds of around 10 megabits per second, placing it in the bottom third of countries included in the report. The speed matched that of Peru, Venezuela, Bulgaria and Russia, and was nearly one-fourth the 37 Mbps average download speed posted by Singapore.
OpenSignal noted the speed discrepancy was due to some countries continuing to plow spectrum resources into their mobile ecosystems, while others were struggling to keep up with consumer demand. This was especially apparent for the U.S., which as one of the first countries to launch LTE services – along with Sweden and Japan – also posts some of the largest overall LTE customer bases.
“It’s not that those countries have stopped investing in LTE infrastructure; both Japan and the U.S. are in the top 10 when it comes to building out 4G coverage, while Sweden ranks 13th,” OpenSignal explains. “However, due to lack of spectrum, lack of technological innovation or just sheer network oversubscription, they’ve failed to keep pace as other countries push mobile broadband speeds ever higher.”
One area where the U.S. took advantage of its early leadership in LTE deployments is in network coverage, as the country’s operators managed to provide connectivity 81% of the time according to OpenSignal’s methodology. U.S. coverage was equal to Uruguay and just behind Singapore, but was indeed well below the 97% posted by South Korea and 90% posted by Japan. It should be noted the U.S. is far larger than those report-leading countries and has a much more spatially diverse population.
OpenSignal did applaud the U.S. for its coverage work, noting counties with greater than 80% LTE coverage remain a “rare breed.”
“That the U.S. accomplished this feat is all the more impressive in light of its geography,” the report stated. “It’s much easier (and cheaper) to build a highly available network in a more densely packed country like South Korea or in a city-state like Singapore than in a country spread across a continent.”
OpenSignal earlier this week released its U.S.-specific network report showing T-Mobile US edging Verizon Wireless in terms of overall network performance, though Verizon Wireless’ LTE network proved to be the country’s top performer.
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