For the first time, we are now comparing 5G users’ overall experience across 12 of the world’s leading 5G markets. Globally, our 5G users in Saudi Arabia see the fastest overall average download speed with a Download Speed Experience of 144.5 Mbps ahead of Canada’s 5G users in second place with 90.4 Mbps. Strikingly, 5G Users in the country with the highest adoption of 5G to date, South Korea, rank just third.

The US's average 5G speed is 1.8 times higher than the country's average 4G download speed of 28.9Mbps. User tests in neighboring Canada produced a 4G average of 59.4Mbps and a 5G average of 178.1Mbps. Taiwan and Australia both produced 5G averages above 200Mbps, while South Korea and Saudi Arabia produced the highest 5G speeds at 312.7Mbps and 414.2Mbps, respectively.

The modest 5G Download Speeds in the US are due to a combination of the limited amount of new mid-band 5G spectrum that is available and the popularity of low-band spectrum – T-Mobile’s 600MHz and AT&T’s 850MHz – which offer excellent availability and reach but lower average speeds than the 3.5GHz mid-band spectrum used as the main 5G band in every country outside of the US. However, Verizon’s mmWave-based 5G service offers very considerably faster average 5G Download Speeds of 494. 7 Mbps in our recent U.S. report, which is faster than the average 5G download speeds Opensignal has seen on any operator, or in any country to date including Saudi Arabia. 

Smaller geographies like Kuwait or Hong Kong have an advantage over large countries like Australia or the US in offering users high levels of 5G Availability which makes the achievements of operators in both Australia and the US — powering their 5G users’ experience ahead of the UK, and Switzerland — all the more impressive.

With the increase in remote learning due to COVID-10, the City of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the philanthropic community, and leading Internet Service Providers (ISPs) recognized a historic opportunity to eliminate broadband accessibility as a barrier to digital learning. On June 25, 2020, Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot announced the launch of Chicago Connected, a groundbreaking, multi-year, public-private partnership to close Chicago’s digital divide and ensure that CPS students and their families have the Internet in their home for remote learning. The $50 million program is one of the most extensive and longest-term efforts by any city to provide free, high-speed Internet to increase students’ connectivity. In closing the city’s digital divide, Chicago Connected is not only eliminating broadband accessibility as a barrier to digital learning but providing a roadmap for other cities and school districts to follow. 

Social media companies say they’re preparing for a protracted battle against online misinformation come Election Day, particularly given there may not be an immediate winner. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity, said his nightmare scenario for the election is that bad actors use any delays in the outcome to stoke “fear, uncertainty and doubt” online. Unprecedented problems for an unprecedented election: “When we talk about the election, we talk about the leadup to election night, we talk about election day as a pivotal moment. This year is different,” Roth said. “We should be talking about election day, November 3rd, as being one moment of a series of moments in the weeks around the election that are going to be decisive in terms of what the results of it are.” Tech companies including Twitter, Facebook and Google are preparing for a scenario in which a winner is not immediately declared because of extra time to count mail-in ballots and the possibility of President Donald Trump declaring the results invalid.