Calgary home to Canada’s fastest average 5G download speeds: report

The city of Calgary is home to Canada’s fastest average 5G download speeds, according to Opensignal’s latest benchmarking analysis report.

Opensignal’s report looks at the top 10 5G global cities and places Calgary in tenth place globally with 184.1Mbps average 5G download speed and 22.3Mbps upload speed.

The analytic firm states that “those living in Canada’s most highly populated cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, must venture to the winter sports destination of Calgary to see Canada’s fastest average 5G Download Speed.â€

According to the report, Jeonju, South Korea ranked first with 415.6Mbps average 5G download speed and 21.3Mbps upload speed. Hsinchu City in Taiwan ranked second with 360Mbps download and 21Mbps upload. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia rounded out the top three with 317.3Mbps download and 27Mbps upload.

The report outlines that three of the cities in the 5G global top ten are capital cities: Riyadh, Tokyo, and Dublin. Of the other cities, several are key business centres, notably Dubai, Zurich and Barcelona.

Canada ranked fifth in terms of 5G games experience with a score of 85.6. South Korea came in first with a score of 90.8 and the Netherlands followed with 90.7 percent. Ireland rounded out the top three with a score of 88.8.

In terms of 5G voice app experience, Canada came in 8th place with a score of 83.7. South Korea once again ranked in first place with a score of 85.1. Ireland and the Netherlands both received a score of 85.

It’s worth noting that Canada didn’t rank in the top ten for the 5G video experience category.

A recent report from Opensignal released last month outlined that Canada is losing its global leadership position in the 5G era due to spectrum challenges. The report stated that although Canada has some of the fastest 4G networks in the world, 5G is proving to be more challenging.

“5G is more challenging because Canada’s operators have had access to less new 5G wireless spectrum than operators in many other countries,†Opensignal noted in the report.

The firm stated that the difference in Canada’s 4G and 5G international position is likely because operators are limited to deploying 5G in lower spectrum bands, as the critical 3.5Ghz spectrum auction was delayed to June 2021 due to COVID-19.