Digital 2025: quicker connections, accelerated access
One of the factors that may be fuelling the internet’s “move to mobile” is the rapid acceleration of mobile data speeds.
For perspective, figures from data.ai suggest that the world spends close to 50 million years of combined human time using mobile apps every month, but none of us likes to waste any time waiting for content to load.
However, the good news is that mobile networks are getting noticeably faster, with the typical user seeing download speeds improve by more than 25 percent over the past 12 months.
Indeed, the latest Speedtest results from Ookla reveal that – at a worldwide level – the typical mobile user now enjoys cellular data bandwidth of 61.52 Mbps.
Mobile internet speeds
The expansion of 5G networks around the world continues to deliver significant improvements in mobile internet speeds too, and Ookla’s data shows that median cellular download speeds have increased by more than 80 percent over the past two years alone
And in fact, median cellular data download speeds now exceed 250 Mbps in a total of three countries – all in the Arabian Gulf – while the median exceeds 100 Mbps in a total of 26 countries.
The United Arab Emirates boasts the fastest mobile connections in this latest round of data, with the typical mobile user now enjoying impressive bandwidth of 441.89 Mbps.
Moreover, the speed of cellular data transfers outpaced that of fixed internet connections in 32 out of 111 countries in November 2024.
The Maldives sees the greatest imbalance in favour of mobile bandwidth, with the country’s cellular data connections more than 7 times faster than its fixed data network.
However, there are some less favourable trends in this year’s data too.
For example, the median cellular data transfer rate in Myanmar has fallen by almost 80 percent over the past 12 months, and the country’s mobile users now struggle with median bandwidth of just 5.09 Mbps.
Afghanistan’s mobile users fare only marginally better too, with median cellular download rates in the country barely reaching 8 Mbps.
The remaining 109 countries in Ookla’s latest mobile dataset all see median download speeds in excess of 10 Mbps, with 92 countries enjoying averages in excess of 25 Mbps.
Fixed internet connections
But despite these impressive numbers, Ookla’s data shows that fixed internet connections still tend to be faster than cellular data networks.
At a worldwide level, fixed connections delivered median bandwidth of more than 95 Mbps in November 2024, with that figure increasing by just under 6 percent over the past 12 months.
Upload speeds have increased more rapidly though, with the current median of 51.49 Mbps almost 25 percent higher than the figures we saw a year ago.
For comparison, fixed connections deliver an average 55 percent advantage over cellular networks when it comes to download speeds, but when it comes to upload speeds, fixed connections are a hefty 4.4 times faster.
Singapore currently claims the fastest download speeds on fixed connections, with internet users in the Lion City enjoying median fixed bandwidth of 324.46 Mbps.
Hong Kong and the UAE also enjoy speedy fixed connections though, with wired networks in both countries delivering median download speeds in excess of 300 Mbps.
Fixed connections aren’t always synonymous with faster downloads though, and Ookla’s data shows that medians still remain below 10 Mbps in 8 out of 156 countries.
Cuba’s internet users suffer from the slowest fixed connections, with median bandwidth in the country still below 3 Mbps.
Syria, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan are only just ahead though, with median download speeds in all three countries languishing in the 3.5 Mbps range.
So, while overall internet adoption continues to climb, it seems there’s still plenty of room for improvement when it comes to ensuring quality of access.
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This article is a sub-section of our Digital 2025 Global Overview Report.
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