Australia's fledgling 5G networks face an uphill battle to outpace 4G, with a global survey of maximum real-world mobile broadband speeds finding the existing mobile standard is especially fast down under.

In a global survey of maximum mobile broadband speeds, Australia was the only country where 4G outpaces 5G, although the 4G result drops once average speeds take congestion into account.

While real-world maximum 5G speeds more than double 4G in countries like the USA, Switzerland and UAE, in Australia the nation's 4G networks are actually 20 per cent faster than 5G, according to a survey of eight 5G-capable countries by independent mobile analytics company Opensignal.

Opensignal attributes the situation to Australia's impressive 4G speeds, rather than slow 5G networks. At 950 Mbps, the nation's 4G maximum real-world download speeds are 40 per cent faster than its nearest 4G rival USA.