In Opensignal's last State of LTE report , we anticipated we would soon see a country that exceeded 50 Mbps in average 4G download speed, setting a new benchmark for high-performance mobile networking. But that 50-Mbps mark remains elusive. Instead, 4G's once steady growth in speed has stopped, and Opensignal has even begun to see declines in LTE speeds in the top-performing 4G countries. But it's not all bad news in our 4G metrics. While speeds have stalled, Opensignal measured some massive gains in LTE availability around the world. 4G signals are consistently accessible more often and in more places now than six months ago. The mobile industry — for the time being at least — appears to have shifted its focus from building powerful LTE networks to building far-reaching networks.

For our latest installment of Opensignal's State of LTE report, we examined more than 50 billion measurements collected by more than 3.8 million smartphone and smart device users. We used these measurements to compare 4G speed and 4G availability in 77 countries, ranking them first in each respective category and then comparing speed against availability for each state. In addition, we've displayed those 77 countries on a global map and calculated the global average speeds for 2G, 3G, 4G and Wifi. While more than 77 countries have LTE services today, we only included the countries for which we had enough data to provide meaningful analysis. As these countries ramp up their LTE deployments and we collect more data within them, we'll include them in future reports.

Shifting LTE trends

Opensignal's 4G availability metric is a measure of how often consumers with 4G devices can connect to an LTE network in their respective countries. There's quite a divide between the best and worst performing countries on our list with South Korea leading the pack with an availability score of 96.4% and Algeria at the bottom with a score of 41.5%. But in general, 4G availability is improving across the globe — and at a rapid clip.

We saw increases in 4G availability in almost every country covered in this report. Six months ago, 33 countries were able to provide an LTE signal more than 70% of the time. That number has grown to 50 in this report, a sure sign that LTE has reached maturity in much of the world. What's more, the number of elite countries in availability is also on the rise. In our latest tests, 20 countries had 4G availability scores of 80% or greater, compared to 16 countries just six months previous. Only two countries, though, have managed to break the 90% mark. In South Korea and Singapore, 4G signals are now as ubiquitous as 3G signals.

But the rapid growth we measured in 4G availability isn't reflected in our 4G speed metrics. In fact, we're witnessing a slight decrease in average LTE speeds among top-performing countries. In our June report, 14 countries averaged 4G downloads of 30 Mbps. Now that number is 13. And of the 45 countries that six months ago managed LTE connections 20 Mbps or faster, only 42 remain on the list. The countries at the top of our list, Singapore, South Korea, Norway and Hungary all maintained very impressive speeds over 42 Mbps. But a year ago it appeared that 4G speeds were steadily marching forward across the globe, and it wouldn't be long before we saw our first 50 Mbps-plus country. Now it appears mobile speeds have stalled.

That said, the global average for LTE downloads did tick upward slightly from 16.2 Mbps to 16.6 Mbps in the last six months. While speeds may be falling off in the top half of our table, they're increasing in the bottom half. And many of these developing countries are having a significant impact on this metric given their huge population sizes.

Looking at 4G speeds or 4G availability alone, however, doesn't paint the full picture of how far a country has progressed in its LTE rollout. In our Full Spectrum of Mobile Performance chart, we plot each country's speed against availability, providing a snapshot of the 4G situation across the globe. States that fall in the upper-righthand quadrant of the chart have both fast 4G speeds and widespread 4G availability, while those with limited availability and slower speeds fall into the lower and lefthand regions of the chart.

In this chart it's easy to see the countries that have maximized the accessibility of their 4G services while still maintaining superior technical capabilities: Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore and South Korea. At the other extreme are countries that are still in their 4G infancy: Algeria, Costa Rica, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

The majority of the 77 countries in this report are clustered in the upper middle of our chart, landing with a range of 60% to 80% 4G availability and 10-25 Mbps speeds. It's the outliers, however that are the most interesting. You'll notice Japan sits alone in the top-center of our chart, showing it's capable of delivering one of the most consistent LTE signals in the world but can't match the global network powerhouses in speed. Meanwhile India is an even more extreme example of the same trend. It has one of the top LTE availability scores in the world, but also the slowest LTE speed rating of the 77 countries in this report. Meanwhile, Ecuador and Ireland find themselves in the opposite situation. Both had measured LTE speeds well ahead of the global average, but in both countries consumers could find an LTE signal only half the time.

Analyzing the results

We're tracking two distinct trends in LTE. 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. We seem to have hit a plateau in LTE technological evolution. 4G's first movers in the developed world have built out their LTE-Advanced infrastructure and are now focused on bringing all of their customers to these new high-powered networks. Meanwhile, in the developing world operators have largely completed their initial LTE rollouts and are turning their 3G customers into 4G customers. Consequently we're seeing much more of a focus on availability than speed. The more people that can tap into the LTE signal, the more potential LTE or LTE-Advanced users operators can sign up.

Even though LTE speeds have declined in many countries, that doesn't mean that the user experience has similarly declined. As 4G availability increases worldwide, consumers spend more time connected to faster LTE networks than to slower 3G networks. Chile is a good example of this trend. In our State of Mobile Networks: Chile report we found that LTE speeds had dropped significantly in the space of 12 months, coinciding with a huge wave of 4G adoption. Chilean regulator Subtel reported 162% growth in 4G connections in 2016, and those new users are competing for bandwidth on Chile's LTE networks, driving down average 4G speeds. But we also measured dramatic increases in 4G availability from most of Chile's operators. With LTE service more readily accessible throughout the country, typical overall mobile data speeds actually increased as consumers spent less time connected to slow 3G networks.

We see similar patterns to Chile's in many countries, especially in developing regions where operators are still expanding their LTE networks and moving their customers onto 4G services. Consequently we may very well see 4G speeds decline further in our next few State of LTE reports before they once again start to improve. It's not that LTE's technological advancement has halted, but we do seem to have reached a transition point where operators globally are more focused on building coverage than capacity into their networks. Once the next iterations of LTE-Advanced network and handset technologies become available, we'll likely see the 4G powerhouses kick off a new cycle of upgrades, pushing the topmost 4G speeds even higher. And in the developing world, we'll likely see new rounds of investment in 4G capacity as operators load up their initial LTE networks with customers and tap into new sources of spectrum.

Either way, it looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer before we crack that 50 Mbps barrier.