U.S. LTE Wireless Broadband Speeds 59th Worldwide The good news: Open Signal's latest report on the status of LTE networks indicates that the United States ranks fourth in overall LTE availability, with 86.5% able to access an LTE signal. The bad news: LTE service in the States is slower than dozens of other countries worldwide; the report ranking the United States fifty-ninth in terms of average downstream speeds at around 15 Mbps. Most studies historically also indicate that United States citizens pay more money for LTE wireless broadband than most other developed countries.

According to the report, LTE speeds have slowed worldwide since the beginning of the year, with the number of countries with average speeds in excess of 20 Mbps dropping since the first quarter of 2017. “We're tracking two distinct trends in LTE,” notes the company. “While access to LTE service is unmistakably increasing around the world, the once impressive growth in 4G speeds seems to have ground to a halt. While the former trend is most certainly good news, the latter isn't necessarily bad news." Overall, the report indicates that the global average 4G download speed increased from 16.2 Mbps to 16.6 Mbps between the first and the third quarters of this year. Signal quality is improving as well, notes the firm. 4G users in 50 of the 77 countries examined by Open Signal were able to access an LTE signal in at least 70% of attempts, up from the 33 countries that demonstrated the same capability half a year ago. US LTE scored well by this metric, Americans able to access LTE 86.94% of the time, fifth highest in the world. That said, the US' fifty-ninth place showing for speed falls well behind world leader South Korea -- where users see average speeds of 45.9 Mbps -- and Singapore -- where LTE customers see average speeds of 46.6 Mbps. You can find the full Open Signal report You can find the full Open Signal report here (pdf) if you're interested.







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Most recommended from 31 comments



tshirt

Premium Member

join:2004-07-11

Snohomish, WA 16 recommendations tshirt Premium Member Coverage is most important, higher speeds will evolve the fastest speed in the world doesn't help you if you have no coverage

Eddy120876

join:2009-02-16

Bronx, NY 7 recommendations Eddy120876 Member No surprise there This country keeps falling behind everything it created: highways,railroads and the internet . But I digress someone will say “is a huge country surrounded by lots of water..big oceans you know” hell let’s do nothing that seem to works, jeez stop making excuses for telcos that get paid enough money to build a tower on everyone’s home. Our prices are insane for what we get compared to almost the entire European continent (I said most because I know someone will point out some small nation on Eastern Europe not been that great..sigh)

obeythelaw

Premium Member

join:2003-04-16

Warren, NJ 5 recommendations obeythelaw Premium Member I hate these types of comparison reports United States land mass is huge and we have people living in practically every part of the US land mass. As the other poster her mentioned, it is best to have coverage than the fastest LTE. Seriously, a small country like South Korea and Singapore, after decades of investment could certainly have the coverage and density needed. I'm also sure a lot of those countries don't have the roadblocks like we do here where you can put up a tower, etc. b10010011

Whats a Posting tag?

join:2004-09-07

Bellingham, WA 4 recommendations b10010011 Member We're 59th! We're 59th! We're 59th! We're 59th! MAGA! SArcanine

join:2009-11-09

New York 3 recommendations SArcanine Member Glass half empty reporting This news post should be celebrating that the US is now #4 in the world in LTE coverage. Instead, it is lamenting that the US is #59 in speeds. #59 in the world is actually the upper quartile, which is rather good.



Anyway, here is to hoping that things continue moving forward.