5G Speed – How Fast is 5G

With the latest 5G roll out around the corner, people are wondering what is 5G speed and how faster it is going to be than the previous generations. Here we explain the speeds of this latest mobile network technology and give you all the information you need with regard to 5G speeds.

Joy Taylor Last Updated: May. 21, 2021

Currently, the majority of people in the world are using 4G networks to send and receive data. However, soon that is going to change. The latest technology in the field of mobile networking is going to be rolled out soon. It will be the fifth generation of mobile cellular technology and it is going to bring with it some amazing advancements in data transfer speeds.

In this article, we talk about the 5G Internet speed and what exactly you will be getting with it on your phone. From what download speeds you will achieve to how faster your files will be uploaded to what the latency times will be, we cover that all for you here in this guide.

Part 1. How Fast Will 5G Be?

5G is going to bring a number of new features and improvements in the field of cellular technology. However, from a customer’s point of view, what is going to matter the most is the data transfer speeds that it will bring.

The Speed of 5G

The Speed of 5G

After all, whether you make a video call, an audio call, or download and upload files, your data transfer speeds define how long these tasks take on your devices. With the latest 5G technology, people believe these speeds are going to get significantly faster.

Here we break down each of these parts for you and give you information on what changes you are going to see with 5G in terms of downloading and uploading your data to the Internet.

1. Download Speed

If you often download large files such as games, movies, and other video files, the latest 5G technology is going to benefit you a lot. With improved download speeds in 5G, you will see a dramatic change in how fast your machines download files from the Internet.

5G Download Speed

5G Download Speed

The 5G download speeds are expected to be much faster than the previous generations such as 4G speeds. On average, you will get anywhere between 200 to 300 Mbps speeds to download your files. This is an average and your speed will increase in peak times. For instance, during peak thresholds, you can expect your speeds to hit the mark of 1 Gbps.

That is extremely faster than anything we have seen so far. These are some unimaginable speeds that you will be getting with 5G on your devices. Theoretically, 5G is supposed to provide users with speeds up to 10 Gbps. However, that is not going to happen, as, after all, it is a theory.

Practically, 1 Gbps is really great and you will be able to download most files from your favorite sites in a matter of a few seconds. Whether you are looking to download a huge movie or a video game that is sized around 2GB, you will be able to finish the download in a few seconds.

The speeds also depend on what carrier you are with. Certain carriers have certain speed limits and you can get this information from the particular website of your mobile phone carrier.

2. Upload Speed

If you are someone who uploads more than what you download, you are also going to get some amazing upload speeds with the 5G technology. Whether it is a YouTube video that you are uploading or you are uploading entire movies somewhere on a website, your files will be uploaded in a matter of a few minutes that has not been possible with the previous mobile networking generations.

5G Upload Speed

5G Upload Speed

The information on the upload speeds is not very clear from the mobile networks. However, you can expect it to be significantly higher than that of 4G. It is because if the download speeds are going to be faster, then so will be the upload speeds.

To give you a rough idea of how fast it is going to be, you should get upload speeds at about 300 Mbps. That is much more than what you may currently be getting with your current provider. With this type of speed, you can expect to finish uploading a large movie in well under a minute from your devices.

At peak times, you can expect your upload speeds to reach 1 Gbps which is what you should be getting with 5G. With that speed, your files will upload like never before. You will even be able to hold online virtual meetings in 8K quality without a single drop in your connection. There will be no lags or connection-related issues whatsoever.

3. Latency Time

When it comes to mobile network speeds, most users only think of downloading and uploading speeds. However, there is a third item that affects how slow or fast your connection works. It is called latency and you may likely be familiar with it if you play online multiplayer games.

A latency is nothing but the time it takes from the moment you send a request from your device to the time the server responds. This greatly affects how fast you receive response or content on your screens from the provider’s servers. The lower the latency time, the better it is for you.

On 3G networks, the latency time was around 120 ms which you can say was ok. In that latency time, you can hardly play any online games in real-time and also some other apps suffered from long latency times. However, with the inception of 4G, the latency time got down to half of that and you had 50-60 ms latency.

If you are someone who does online gaming, you would know that even 4G’s latency time is not that great to play games without lags. When you input something from your keyboard, it still takes time for that action to take place on your device. With 5G, though, your latency time will be dropped to 1 ms.

That is something so one has imagined. With a latency time of as little as 1 ms, you will hardly see any lags or connection-delays while working online. Everything will work just butterly smooth.

Part 2. 5G vs 4G Speed

If you are wondering how much faster 5G is than 4G, here we answer that question for you. In a nutshell, you are going to experience far better and higher speeds with 5G compared to 4G. However, if you are someone who loves to learn the details and every bit of it, then we have got some in-depth information for you here.

Further Reading: What is the Difference Between 4G and 5G >

Comparison Between 4G and 5G

Comparison Between 4G and 5G

At peak times, 4G is supposed to provide you with 100 Mbps of download speeds. A generation earlier than that, 3G, used to provide 384 Kbps of download speeds. With the roll-out of the 5G technology, you can expect to get speeds of up to 10 Gbps.

As you can easily calculate by yourself, 5G is ten times faster than 4G. However, most speeds are described on the basis of the theory and they may not necessarily represent the actual speeds. Practically, you will still get much higher speeds with 5G than what you got with 4G on your phones and other devices.

Average download speeds on 5G are around 599 Mbps compared to the 240 Mbps of 4G. You can easily see the difference in the speeds of two generations here. What you could do with 4G can now be done in one-tenth of the time with 5G.

The following is a simple table comparing the speeds of 4G and 5G networks.

Generation Top Speed Average Speed Technology
4G 300 Mbps 32.5 Mbps WiMax, LTE
5G 20 Gbps 240 Mbps Unknown

The Bottom Line

We hope the above guide gives you the information that you wanted to know about the speeds of 5G technology. It also provides you with a nice table to help compare 5G speeds with the 4G speeds.

Author Avatar
Joy Taylor Twitter Share Facebook Share

Member of iMobie team as well as an Apple fan, love to help more users solve various types of iOS & Android related issues.

Back to Top Icon