A survey of wireless ISPs shows that the download speeds of their 5G services are significantly faster than 4G, but the gains in upload speed are less impressive. Wireless operators around the world have been heavily focused on providing the best possible consumer 5G download speeds, but a new survey from the research division of French managed services provider SmartCIC says that upload connections—which enterprises need to enable important applications—are lagging behind. In fact, according to the survey, 4G/LTE networks, on average, have 1ms of latency, compared to 8ms for 5G networks. The researchers said that there’s a possibility that a large proportion of tests being run on low-band 5G networks skewed the results somewhat, but also noted that even tests on very high frequency mmWave (millimeter wave) networks showed up to 10ms of latency on 5G networks. The average global download speed for 5G networks was 898Mbps, compared to 671Mbps for 4G/LTE and 99Mbps for 3G networks. The difference in upload speed between 5G and 4G/LTE was much smaller, however, and the researchers emphasize that this is a potential issue for the business use of public 5G networks. “5G performance is still heavily focused on consumer download speeds while enterprises increasingly need a more balanced approach connectivity,” the report said. “Upload speeds remain critical for enterprise data transfer.” The disparity between 4G and 5G upload and download speeds is instructive, per the SmartCIC research. Going by the average figures, 4G uploads provided 36% as much upload speed as download speed, but that figure was just 13% for 5G networks. That disparity is likely to shrink substantially as more carriers implement mmWave technology, which provides a lot of additional bandwidth for both down and uploads, but SmarCIC’s statistics underline the emphasis placed on consumer download speeds in early 5G deployments. The study also ranked the top municipalities by average download and upload speeds. For 5G networks, the fastest downloads were to be had in Cannes, Singapore, Munich, Nashville and Oslo, while Lexington, Miami, Nashville, Melbourne and Rome had the fastest 4G downloads. For 5G uploads, the fastest cities were Amsterdam, Barcelona, Toronto, Belgrade and Los Angeles, with Melbourne, Munich, Belgrade, Amsterdam and New York topping the rankings for 4G uploads. The survey was based on speed test results from 2,536 field engineers in 51 countries, and readings were taken between late March and early May of this year. Related content opinion Can your cloud backup provider fail? Cloud backup providers aren’t infallible. Be sure to ask hard questions of providers about their storage redundancy, geo-replication, data integrity measures, and disaster recovery capabilities. By Curtis Preston Apr 19, 2024 7 mins Backup and Recovery Cloud Computing Data Center news Cisco marries AI and security with cloud-based data center offering Cisco announces AI-based Hypershield, a self-upgrading security fabric that's designed to protect distributed applications, devices and data. By Michael Cooney Apr 18, 2024 5 mins Network Security Data Center how-to Shredding files on Linux with the shred command The shred command is a good option for removing files from a Linux system in a way that makes them virtually impossible to recover. By Sandra Henry-Stocker Apr 18, 2024 4 mins Linux news Intel announces edge AI processors New edge-optimized processors and FPGAs will power AI-enabled devices in vertical industries including retail, industrial and healthcare. By Andy Patrizio Apr 18, 2024 3 mins CPUs and Processors Edge Computing PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe