The survey, which uses data captured by network engineers globally to provide snapshots of 3G, 4G and 5G performance found that upload speeds were 31.27Mbps, which only showed an increase of 55% over the 4G global average.
This is in contrast to 5G download speeds which leapt by 330% to 241.61Mbps between March and May 2022.
“The research shows how MNOs have prioritised 5G download speeds in their initial rollouts and now there’s an opportunity to focus on enterprise demand for rapid upstream data transfer,” said Toby Forman, CEO at SmartCIC.
“Based on the research sample, we saw 5G delivering higher latency than 4G in some cases. This may be due to a number of the 5G tests being run on low-band networks.
“Where results have been taken in areas with mmWave, there are dramatically different results including downloads in excess of 800mbps, uploads in excess of 250mbps and latencies of sub 10ms.”
The survey captured speed tests from 2,536 telecoms network engineers across 51 countries across 331 unique locations to capture the data.
Data samples span Africa, Asia, Australia, the Americas and Europe, Cellsmart said.
The top five mobile network operators with maximum download speeds were Du (UAE), Telia (Sweden), Deutsche Telekom (Germany), EE (UK), and Singtel (Singapore).
The top five metro markets with the best 5G average download speeds were Cannes, German, Nashville, Oslo and Singapore.
“Over time, as we see more results added to our database and we’ll be able to provide an accurate and evolving snapshot of how cellular technologies are performing in the field,” added Forman.
“This initial cut of data is just the start of the process. As we begin to see greater density of results globally we will those into insights for our customers and the broader market.”
