Ookla has published its State of Worldwide Connectivity report for 2023. There is a ton of insight in there for people concerned with 5G, access to data, and internet speed numbers in general. However, also in this latest report is a bit of depression for US consumers, as it’s evident that we as a market still trail behind many others in terms of average speed.
The top 10 is impressive, with the fastest country being United Arab Emirates with a blazing median 5G speed of 592.01 Mbps. Right behind them is South Korea with 507.59 Mbps. The slowest of the top 10? That would be India at just above 300Mbps, which is still incredibly fast. Heck, even Kuwait is around 375Mbps, good enough for 7th place.
While the US didn’t do well enough to rank in the top 10 for mobile data speeds, positive news was shared in the fixed broadband space, with Ookla detailing that a 26% improvement in median download speed and a 7% improvement in upload speed was recorded in 2023. Our fixed broadband speeds, at over 200Mbps on average, were good enough for 6th place globally. We’ll take it.
Kellen and I briefly spoke about these results. For me, I blame the size of our country and the network infrastructure needed to provide high speeds across such a vast area. Kellen’s take was a bit more interesting, as he argued that the 5G experience in general is so different from carrier to carrier. If you were to stand in the same spot using the same phone, but on two different carriers, your 5G speeds could be either really high or possibly not that great. It can feel like such a toss up and he’s not wrong.
I recommend reading the entire Ookla report or at least the 5G part. There is always a lot of useful insight that you can then use in the comments section to chop down your opponents. Godspeed.
// Ookla