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You’d have to be living in a cave to not know 4G was faster than 3G, but just how much faster is it really? And what about 5G?
4G offers maximum real-world download speeds up to around 100Mbps, making it over 20 times faster than 3G.
Theoretical maximum 4G speeds are significantly higher at 300Mbps, although such speeds are only achievable in controlled laboratory environments.
5G is far faster still. We’ll get into exactly how fast below, along with everything else you need to know about 4G and 5G speeds in 2024.
To understand just how fast 4G is, we need to put the technology into perspective against the older mobile network technologies, namely 3G and 3G HSPA+. To do so we'll look at the theoretical and real-world performance of 4G LTE, as well as looking at 4G speeds on the UK's mobile networks. We’ll also do the same for 5G, which is another jump up in speed.
When it comes to measuring mobile network speeds there are two situations which are of interest, theoretical and the real world.
Theoretical speeds are those which you can expect to obtain in a laboratory environment with perfect conditions, while real world speeds are those you can expect to get everyday using your phone on a real mobile network.
To benchmark network speeds, we are interested in download and upload speeds.
Download speeds are the rate at which mobile data is transferred from the internet to your phone or other mobile device, for example when downloading a video. While upload speeds are the rate that mobile data is transferred from your phone or other mobile device to the internet, for example when uploading a photo to Facebook.
|
Network Type |
Download Speed |
Upload Speed |
|---|---|---|
|
3G |
7.2Mbps |
2Mbps |
|
3G HSPA+ |
42Mbps |
22Mbps |
|
4G LTE |
150Mbps |
50Mbps |
|
4G LTE-Advanced |
300Mbps |
150Mbps |
|
5G |
10Gbps+ | 1Gbps |
|
Network Type |
Download Speed (Mbps) |
Upload Speed (Mbps) |
|---|---|---|
|
3G |
3 |
0.4 |
|
3G HSPA+ |
6 |
3 |
|
4G LTE |
20 |
5 |
|
4G LTE-Advanced |
42 |
10 |
|
5G |
70-205 |
11.49 |
3G is the slowest speed you’ll usually be browsing on. It has a typical real-world download speed of 3Mbps and a theoretical maximum download speed of 7.2Mbps. If you want to stream a video via 3G from YouTube for example you could be waiting up to ten seconds for it to load. While downloading a 500MB file can take around 22 minutes at typical speeds, with larger apps, movies and albums taking far longer still.
Basic 3G‘s upload speed is a lot slower than its download speed, with typical speeds of 0.4Mbps and a theoretical limit of 2Mbps. In practice 3G is generally fine for web browsing and social networks, you’ll just have to wait a few seconds for pages to load. It would take 3.5 minutes to upload a 10MB file or image.
Note however that the UK’s networks are largely in the process of switching 3G off, so the days of ever getting speeds this low are numbered.
3G HSPA+ is an enhanced version of 3G, and it’s the minimum speed you’ll usually get on a UK network. It offers typical download speeds of 6Mbps and a theoretical maximum of 42Mbps. With typical speeds you can expect streaming videos to load in around 5 seconds and medium sized apps to download in one minute plus, whilst the same 500MB file mentioned above would take 11 minutes to download.
3G HSPA+ provides upload speeds of around 3Mbps and the theoretical maximum is around 22Mbps. At average speeds, a 10MB file or image would take around 27 seconds to upload.
As with standard 3G though, HSPA+ will soon be switched off on most UK networks.
4G (4G LTE) offers typical download speeds of around 20Mbps and theoretical ones of 150Mbps. So for example, you could download a medium sized app in under 15 seconds or load a YouTube video in under 2 seconds at typical speeds. The same 500MB file should be downloadable in under 4 minutes.
4G appears to boost upload speeds to around 5Mbps on average, though most network tests don’t separate standard 4G from LTE-A, which you can read more about below, making it hard to be certain. The same 10MB file or image would take just 16 seconds to upload at these speeds. At the very top end you can expect upload speeds of around 50Mbps.
4G LTE-Advanced is a faster version of 4G with typical real-world download speeds of 42Mbps and theoretical limits of 300Mbps.
EE has launched this service in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, with partial coverage in a number of other UK cities, under the name 4G+, while Vodafone has rolled it out to London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Nottingham, Bristol and numerous other locations.
Three has also now launched a 4G+ service, with coverage in major cities such as London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
In fact, coverage on all these networks is probably far wider than the lists above, but they haven’t revealed up to date lists of the places with LTE-Advanced.
With LTE-Advanced (also known as 4G+, LTE-A or 4.5G) videos will load without a discernible pause and a 500MB file will download in under 2 minutes. In fact, it’s even faster than many home broadband connections.
4G LTE-Advanced offers average upload speeds of likely around 10Mbps, and they can theoretically reach 150Mbps, though as noted above, getting reliable data for LTE-A speeds as distinct from standard 4G is tricky At 10Mbps the same 10MB file or image would take just 8 seconds to upload.
5G is the fastest mobile network technology available and at the time of writing real-world download speeds are averaging around 70-205Mbps, but networks claim peak speeds of 1Gbps or more are already possible, and in future 5G could become far faster still, once the infrastructure and technologies improve.
Those speed results come from various reports, such as a September 2023 Opensignal report and a Speedtest report from the second half of 2023. Between these various reports the UK’s four networks offer average 5G speeds roughly in that range.
Using around the middle of those average speeds, a 500MB file would be downloaded in roughly 28 seconds. There’s less data on 5G upload speeds, but the Speedtest report above suggests the median is 11.49Mbps. At that speed, the uploading of a 10MB file would take just under 7 seconds.
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Download and upload speeds aren’t the only things that have been improved because 4G also has a better response time than 3G – due to lower “latency”. This means that a device connected to a 4G mobile network will get a quicker response to a request than the same device connected to a 3G mobile network.
The improved latency times, reduced from around 80 milliseconds (3G/3G HSPA+) to around 35-50 milliseconds (4G), based on Opensignal data, may not seem that significant on paper. However, they can make a significant difference when playing online games and streaming live video.
5G reduces latency further. Data from Speedtest in 2023 suggested that 5G was offering a median latency of 31ms, while a late 2020 report from RootMetrics found that in central London, Three’s 5G latency was just 17ms, and those figures could theoretically get down to as little as 1ms on 5G in future.
There have been a number of studies conducted to compare 4G speeds on the UK's 4 major networks, but we've picked two of the most telling ones, namely Opensignal’s October 2020 and April 2020 Mobile Network Experience reports.
|
Network |
4G Download/Upload speeds |
4G Latency (ms) |
|---|---|---|
|
EE |
36.4/9.1Mbps |
36.0 |
|
Three |
22.2/8.0Mbps |
48.3 |
|
Vodafone |
22.4/8.5Mbps |
39.0 |
|
O2 |
18.2/6.2Mbps |
38.1 |
The data above was collected by Opensignal, and in the case of download and upload speeds comes from an October 2020 report, and in the case of latency comes from April 2020 (as this wasn’t included in the October one).
Note that there are newer Opensignal reports, but these combine speeds from all network types, so don’t give us useful numbers for these purposes. That said, with networks now focused on 5G, we wouldn’t expect 4G speeds have significantly improved since these reports came out.
You can see EE is substantially ahead of rivals when it comes to average 4G download speeds and also the best for upload speeds and latency.
Vodafone comes second for download and upload speeds, followed by Three, and then O2 is in last place. However, O2 is second for latency, followed by Vodafone, then Three.
|
Network |
5G median download/upload speeds |
5G average download/upload speeds |
5G Latency (ms) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
EE |
174.1/12.06Mbps |
99.5/15.9Mbps |
30 |
|
Three |
165.7/13.14Mbps |
205.5/17.5Mbps |
31 |
|
Vodafone |
158.3/12.21Mbps |
114.3/14.9Mbps |
31 |
|
O2 |
68.7/8.93Mbps |
77.0/10.0Mbps |
33 |
For 5G speeds, a RootMetrics report from the second half of 2023 found that EE’s median 5G download speed was the highest at 174.1Mbps, followed by Three at 165.7Mbps, then Vodafone at 158.3Mbps, and finally O2 at 68.7Mbps.
For median 5G upload speeds, a Speedtest report from the same period put Three’s the highest at 13.14Mbps, followed by Vodafone at 12.21Mbps, then EE at 12.06Mbps, and finally O2 at 8.93Mbps.
Although not shown in the chart above, the same report also included median 5G download speeds, which differ quite a bit from those RootMetrics results. These put Three in first at 226.27Mbps, followed by Vodafone at 141.71Mbps, then EE at 94.79Mbps, and then O2 at 70.43Mbps.
This report also includes median 5G latency, with EE’s being lowest (and therefore best) at 30ms, then Three and Vodafone both being 31ms, and O2 being 33ms.
As for average 5G download speeds, an Opensignal report from September 2023 put Three in first place at 205.5Mbps, followed by Vodafone at 114.3Mbps, then EE at 99.5Mbps, and in last O2 at 77.0Mbps.
That report also included average 5G upload speeds, with Three’s being highest again there at 17.5Mbps, followed by EE at 15.9Mbps, then Vodafone at 14.9Mbps, and then O2 at 10.0Mbps.
For peak speeds, the RootMetrics report mentioned above found that Three was top, with a 95th percentile 5G download speed of 853.4Mbps, followed by EE with 638.5Mbps, then Vodafone with 401.8Mbps, and finally O2 with 301.2Mbps. So in all cases O2’s 5G results were the worst.
EE is still clearly the fastest 4G network, with average speeds up to twice as fast as the other three networks according to tests. Vodafone and Three are now on a pretty level footing across the UK in terms of average 4G upload and download speeds, but O2 is notably slightly behind in tests.
As for 5G, test results vary but in most cases it seems that Three has the edge, closely followed by EE (which might additionally win for 5G latency). The main factor initially will be coverage though, and on that front all of the networks are improving quickly.
