4G has not been retired yet, but the global 5G network speed has begun to shrink: down by 39%. What do you think?

Have you used 5G? How does the network speed feel?

Ookla recently released the Speedtest survey report for the third quarter of 2021, showing that the average download speed of global 5G networks was 166.13Mbps, a 13% drop from 206.22Mbps in the same period last year.

The upload speed was even worse, with an average speed of 21.08Mbps, a drop of 39% compared to 29.52Mbps in the same period last year.

The top 10 regions in terms of internet speed were almost reshuffled, with South Korea jumping from fifth last year to first, surpassing Norway. South Africa, Spain, Bahrain, and Hungary fell out of the top 10, replaced by Sweden, mainland China, Taiwan, and New Zealand respectively.

The decline in Internet speed is also reflected in the top 10. Last year, Norway took the first place with a download speed of 549.02Mbps. Although it is still second this year, it is only 426.75Mbps. South Korea, which jumped to the first place, has an Internet speed of 492.48Mbps, up from 411.31Mbps last year.

In addition, the top 10 cities with the fastest Internet speeds are Seoul, South Korea, Oslo, Norway, Stockholm, Sweden, Abu Dhabi, UAE, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Doha, Qatar, Kuwait City, Sofia, Bulgaria, Muscat, Oman and Taipei, China.

In terms of 5G penetration rate, the United States has the highest rate at 49.2%, followed by the Netherlands at 45.1% and South Korea at 43.8%. The report also pointed out that 20% of the Internet population is still using 2G/3G networks.