Surprise! Malaysia Has One Of The Slowest 4G Networks In The World

A UK-based wireless coverage mapping specialist OpenSignal analysed 4G networks across 88 countries around the world between October and December last year.

The company published their findings in a global report titled 'The State of LTE' and it was revealed that Malaysia has one of the slowest 4G speeds in the world.

The average 4G speed here in those last three months of 2017 was 14.83 megabits per second (Mbps), which places us in the bottom 20 countries.

What happened to the 100 Mbps that has been promised to us? We'll never know. In fact, no country has surpassed 50 Mbps threshold for speed so far.

Some of our neighbours that are downloading and uploading faster than us on their mobile phones include Myanmar (15.56 Mbps), Brunei (17.48 Mbps), Vietnam (21.49 Mbps), and duh Singapore sitting right at the top with the fastest average speed, 44.31 Mbps.

We just have to keep telling ourselves: we're getting there, we're getting there, just cross the sea and we're there.

But all is not lost, our 4G speed did improve compared to the previous year, which was 14.35 Mbps.

The availability of 4G network has also expanded at a steady pace across the board.

In Malaysia, we have 74.88 per cent of 4G availability. This means that about three quarters of our country won't experience the switch between 4G and 3G on our mobile phones.

This also puts us at number 42 on the list for 4G availability, right above the halfway mark ahead of our fellow ASEAN members, Brunei (73.66 per cent), Indonesia (72.39 per cent) and Vietnam (71.26 per cent).

OpenSignal’s latest global report for February 2018 was published after analysing more than 58 billion measurements collected and testing over 4.8 million devices.

The whole world, especially for us Malaysians, are still eagerly waiting for the day we get super internet speed. But the report concluded that the global mobile industry is focusing more on expanding access to LTE signals to more people and places, rather than increasing the actual speed.