You may have heard operators brag about their data speeds, e.g. 100 megabytes per second (Mbps) or even 1 gigabyte per second (Gbps) on 4G. While it sounds impressive, these are merely theoretical data speeds, i.e. conducted in a perfect environment with zero latency (network lag). This means that, unfortunately, your speeds will never approach that speed (yet) when out in the real world. For that reason, below we’ve outlined theoretical and real-world data speeds so that you can know what to expect:
4G
Theoretic data speeds: 100 Mbps when moving, e.g. in a car, and 1 Gbps when standing still.
Real-world data speeds: 18.6 Mbps and upload speeds of 9.0 Mbps
3G
Theoretic data speeds: 7.2 Mbps or 52 Mbps on 3G HSPA+
Real-world data speeds: 4.3 Mbps download and 1.1 Mbps upload
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