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See how painfully slow 4G LTE is in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 9:12PM EST
LTE Speed Test Comparison

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It turns out T-Mobile is a one-eyed man in the land of the blind. In a recent study conducted on a massive scale, T-Mobile was found to have the fastest 4G LTE network in America, narrowly beating Verizon. But here’s the bad news: 4G LTE networks in America are painfully slow to begin with. OpenSignal released new data on Thursday showing that the average LTE download speed in the United States is less than one-third as fast as the top-ranked nation.

Who is ranked No. 1? How many countries out there have faster LTE download speeds than the U.S.? Prepare to be saddened.

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In addition to using its widely available speed test app to pit U.S. wireless carriers against each other, OpenSignal collected data from speed tests performed around the globe. Using this massive treasure trove of data, the firm compiled a list of the countries with the fastest 4G LTE download speeds in the world.

America did not fare well.

The No. 1 country in the world was Singapore, according to OpenSignal’s data. With an average LTE download speed of 37Mbps, the island nation found itself a full 8Mbps ahead of No. 2 ranking New Zealand (29Mbps). Hungary (28Mbps), Israel (28Mbps) and South Korea (27Mbps) rounded out the top five.

What about the United States? Well, you’ll have to thumb almost all the way down the list to No. 55, where America sits between Russia (10Mbps) and Argentina (9Mbps) with an average LTE download speed of 10Mbps.

A chart of OpenSignal’s data follows below (click to enlarge), and you can read the full report on the firm’s website.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.