5G Report Ranks 50 US States For Service Speed, Here's Where Top Bandwidth Is Served
The state of 5G is improving in the United States, both in terms of average download speeds and overall availability. To what extent depends on where you live, naturally. Illinois, for example, leads the way with an average 5G download speed of 141.4 Mbps, while Vermont brings up the rear as the only US state to see speeds run below 50 Mbps on average (48.7 Mbps).
Those numbers (and more) come form the latest report by Opensignal, in what can be viewed as a sort of State of the 5G Union update. And it's mostly good news. The report states that the 5G experience is rapidly changing for the better in the US as carriers flesh out their 5G networks and, just as importantly, deploy new 5G spectrum bands.
In 23 US states our 5G users experienced average 5G download speeds above 100 Mbps, with a further 13 states scoring between 80 and 100 Mbps. That’s a significant improvement compared to six-months ago, when only the state of New York exceeded the 100 Mbps threshold," the report states.
Source: Opensignal
By our count, 34 states are seeing average 5G download speeds of at least 90 Mbps. That's encouraging, though on the other side, there are still a handful of states clocking in at under 60 Mbps. They include Montana (59.2 Mbps), Wyoming (59.1 Mbps), West Virginia (56.2 Mbps), Maine (52.2 Mbps), Alaska (50.6 Mbps), and Vermont.
Exceptions aside, Opensignal credits the rise in speeds to wireless carriers gaining access to new mid-band spectrum for 5G, such as T-Mobile's 2.5GHz band deployments.
"These results help to explain why the C-band spectrum is important for boosting 5G mobile experience in the US. In fact, in our latest U.S. 5G Experience report we observed how T-Mobile had seen its 5G Download Speed increase further compared to previous reports, while Verizon and AT&T’s scores had remained virtually unchanged," Opensignal says.
AT&T and Verizon are also deploying C-band spectrum, and because of this Opensignal expects its next report will show another jump in the average download speed.
Breaking the numbers down further, the report indicates that over the past six months, 5G users in 44 states saw an improvement in download speeds of 27 Mbps (36.6 percent) on average. Six states saw no statistical change, including Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont.
Source: Opensignal
As for the availability of 5G, Opensignal noted an increase in just 21 states, with Illinois and Texas leading the way.
"However, as we move towards the bottom of the table, we see 5G Availability decrease sharply. While last time we observed 10 states scoring below 15% in 5G Availability, this time it’s just seven states. North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine and Montana’s scores were statistically unchanged compared to the previous report," the report states.
Top Image Source: Christoph Scholz (via Flickr)
