LTE Speed: Devices Matter

Long Term Evolution speeds are affected by population density, bandwidth available to create channels and even device performance, so all measurements of LTE "speed" must be qualified. 

The countries where OpenSignal has recorded the fastest average LTE speeds tend to be ones where the population is heavily concentrated in a small number of urban centers. 

Countries with a population that is more evenly spread seem to perform slightly worse, perhaps due to the difficulty of rolling-out LTE over a larger geographic area, OpenSignal says.

"Our methodology measures how the network is experienced and therefore is considerably affected by device variance," OpenSignal says. 

Sweden has the fastest LTE network at 22.1 Mbps, while Japan has the slowest LTE network at 7.1 Mbps, a recent analysis indicates. 

The average LTE speed globally is 10.4 Mbps, OpenSignal says.


Download speed in Mbps by country and network