LONDON, UK – While Canada places within the top 25 countries for 4G availability and speed, its ranking declined slightly from six months ago in keeping with global trends, according to the latest The State of LTE report by OpenSignal.
The report examined more than 50 billion measurements collected by more than 3.8 million smartphone and smart device users between July 1 – October 1, 2017 to compare 4G speed and 4G availability in 77 countries.
While LTE availability is increasing worldwide, the same can't be said for LTE speeds. 4G signals are consistently accessible more often and in more places now than six months ago, though it appears that 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, says the 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. 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. South Korea leads the pack with an availability score of 96.4%, followed by Japan at 94.11%. Canada was ranked 23rd with 79.52%.
Average LTE speeds have decreased slightly in top-performing countries, with just 13 countries averaging 4G downloads of 30 Mbps. And of the 45 countries that six months ago managed LTE connections of 20 Mbps or faster, only 42 remain on the list. Singapore and South Korea topped the LTE speed charts with 46.64 Mbps and 45.85 Mbps, respectively, while Canada placed 14th with 29.79 Mbps.
