5G uploads aren’t fast enough for enterprise needs

Wireless operators around the world have been heavily focused on providing the best possible consumer 5G download speeds, but a new survey from the research division of French managed services provider SmartCIC says that upload connections—which enterprises need to enable important applications—are lagging behind. In fact, according to the survey, 4G/LTE networks, on average, have 1ms of latency, compared to 8ms for 5G networks. The researchers said that there’s a possibility that a large proportion of tests being run on low-band 5G networks skewed the results somewhat, but also noted that even tests on very high frequency mmWave (millimeter wave) networks showed up to 10ms of latency on 5G networks. The average global download speed for 5G networks was 898Mbps, compared to 671Mbps for 4G/LTE and 99Mbps for 3G networks. The difference in upload speed between 5G and 4G/LTE was much smaller, however, and the researchers emphasize that this is a potential issue for the business use of public 5G networks.