During the first quarter of this year, Australia was listed as one of the countries with the faster mobile speeds in the world. The country has a median 5G download speed of 283.56Mbps, which is nearly double the global average of 142.05Mbps. The measurements are performed by Ookla’s Speedtest.

Worldwide Rankings

Australia ranked third after South Korea and China. The former had the fastest median download speed over 5G during the first quarter while China came in second.

When it comes to the countries with the fastest mobile download speeds, Australia is consistent in belonging to the list of top countries highlighted. In March this year, it ranked seventh in this category according to Speedtest’s Global Index. In this case, the country’s median download speed over mobile was 109.33Mbps.

According to Ookla, Optus edged out Telstra during the first quarter of 2021. Thus, Optus was named as the fastest operator with a median download speed of over 5G of 309.86Mbps. Telstra ranked second with a median 5G download speed of 295Mbps. The third-place belonged to TPG/Vodafone with 184.98Mbps.

In terms of the fastest median upload speed over 5G during the first quarter of 2021, Telstra beat out Optus with a speed of 28.27Mbps. Optus came in at second place with 21.56Mbps while Vodafone ranked third at 16.70Mbps. The results can be attributed to Australia’s strong LTE networks.

5G Availability

A key indicator of the development of a provider’s network is 5G availability. For this, Telstra showed a 5G availability of 32.8%, a figure that was more than double that of Optus with only 13.6%. This figure is nearly ten times that of Vodafone which only has 3.4% 5G availability.

When it comes to the areas where 5G is available, Queensland and Victoria led the list. 5G availability in Queensland is now 23.5% while in Victoria, it is 23.3%. For the other regions, South Australia covered 21.6%, Western Australia 19.3%, and New South Wales 19.2%. In the case of Tasmania, the sample size of the region was too small.

When it comes to the cities where 5G connectivity was available, Melbourne had the fastest median 5G download speed at 316.66Mbps. Sydney ranked second with a median download speed of 304.67Mbps while Adelaide took third place having a median download speed of 301.52Mbps. In Perth, the median 5G download speed was only 251.96Mbps while in Brisbane and Canberra, it was 247.64Mbps and 244.54Mbps respectively.

While Ookla’s Speedtest data did not reveal a clear champion for the city with the best 5G availability, Brisbane had a 5G availability of 32.0%.