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South Australia has fastest 4G speeds in Australia: OpenSignal

OpenSignal has said it is expecting Australia's 4G score to go up by a couple of megabits in its next global report, with the coverage mapping company recording speeds of above 40Mbps in South Australia.
Written by Corinne Reichert, Contributor

Telecommunications coverage mapping company OpenSignal has a released a report finding South Australia has the fastest 4G mobile network speeds in Australia, with an average of 41.2Mbps.

According to OpenSignal, which measured speeds between May 1 and July 29, Victoria ranked second, at 39Mbps on average, followed by Queensland, with 37.9Mbps; Western Australia, with 37.8Mbps; New South Wales, with 36.5Mbps; Tasmania, with 32.1Mbps; and the Northern Territory, with 29.7Mbps.

"OpenSignal analysed average 4G download speeds across Australia's seven largest states and territories in the 90 days starting May 1, 2018. We found that all but one of the regions topped the 30 Mbps milestone -- but even the sparsely populated Northern Territory managed a very respectable average LTE download speed of 29.7Mbps in our measurements," OpenSignal said in a blog post.

"Judging by these speeds and our regional analysis, we wouldn't be surprised to see Australia's score grow by at least a couple of megabits in our next global report."

On the availability of 4G, OpenSignal said Victoria was ranked highest, with 4G available 90.31 percent of the time. Tasmania followed, on 88.51 percent, with OpenSignal calling this second placing a "surprise" for the small state.

NSW ranked third on 4G availability, at 87.22 percent; Queensland fourth, at 86.82 percent; SA fifth, on 86.81 percent; WA sixth, on 86.01 percent; and NT last, on 74.92 percent 4G availability.

Back in June, OpenSignal had ranked Telstra first on 4G upload speeds for the nation.

According to that three-month examination, Telstra's upload speeds averaged 10.6Mbps, while second-placed Vodafone Australia clocked in at 7.8Mbps, and Optus at 6.8Mbps during the period.

OpenSignal called the outcome "a little surprising", due to its April report finding that Vodafone had the fastest average 4G download speeds in the country.

"While operator upload and download speeds aren't dependent on each other, they're both linked to a network's total capacity, so we would generally expect to see a correlation," OpenSignal noted.

"But Telstra was only a couple of megabits behind Vodafone's average 4G download speed in our last report, and has significantly beat its rival in 4G upload."

The company added that as trends begin to move from downloading and consuming to creating and uploading media, telcos "could soon start tweaking their networks to differentiate their 4G services in terms of upload as consumer behaviour shifts".

In terms of Australia's LTE network on a global scale, OpenSignal in February reported Australia rising by three places to rank seventh globally on average download speeds, and rising by six places to come 13th worldwide in terms of 4G availability.

Between October and December, Australia's 4G speeds averaged 36.08Mbps, behind Singapore on 44.31Mbps; Netherlands on 42.12Mbps; Norway on 41.20Mbps; South Korea on 40.44Mbps; Hungary on 39.18Mbps; and Belgium on 36.13Mbps.

According to OpenSignal, Australia's improved speeds were due to "big network investments from ... Telstra and Vodafone".

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