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Ireland is well down the international rankings on 5G download speeds, with users here getting 155.8 megabits per second (Mbps), according to figures compiled by Opensignal, a research firm, which surveyed the period July to September. This placed Ireland in 38th place for average download speed in a league table of 56 developed and developing countries.
It is ahead of Britain, where users saw 115.8 Mbps in this category. Britain ranked 46th for download speeds, a finding that was described by The Economist magazine as “the worst mobile service in the rich world”.
Download speeds are hugely affected by demand, with data usage on mobile devices growing exponentially due to gaming and film downloads. However, the main factor is supply. The fifth generation of networks, 5G offers speeds many times faster than 4G, but users are on it less of the time.
The research also covered 5G availability, which is defined as the proportion of time that users with a 5G-capable device and a 5G subscription had an active 5G connection. Ireland placed 49th in this category, with Irish 5G users spending just 9.2pc of their time connected to 5G.
This put Ireland behind the UK in this category, as British 5G users spent 10.8pc of their time connected. In terms of download speeds, Ireland was slightly behind the US, which was in 34th place with 5G users seeing average speeds of 178.
2Mbps. The US was much better in terms of availability, with 5G users spending over 30pc of their time with a connection. Surprisingly, Japan was near the bottom in both categories.
It was 42nd for average 5G download speed at 150.6Mbps, and 48th, just one place above Ireland, for availability, with 9.5pc.
The last Comreg quarterly report, issued in September, reported that the number of 5G subscribers had increased by 33pc year-on-year, bringing the total to 1.7 million voice, mobile and machine-to-machine subscribers. This is the technology that allows devices and sensors to communicate with other internet-enabled systems, although much of it uses the small-bandwidth 2G, which is likely to remain operational indefinitely.
Vodafone, the country’s largest mobile operator, will switch off its entire 3G mobile network across the country next year, and focus efforts on its 4G and the geographically sparse 5G network..
