Cottage-goers won’t miss out on mobile speeds if connected to 5G or 4G networks: study

While visiting cottage country is a summer staple for many Canadians, it’s seldom that people leave all of their electronic devices behind.

Opensignal examined what cottage dwellers can expect when accessing services through their mobile network this summer.

Download speeds were reported at an impressive 113.7Mbps — but only when connected to 5G. Those connected with 4G could only get download speeds of 52.9Mbps.

It goes without surprise that both of these download speeds were slower when compared to the national average. Nationally, 5G download speeds were over nine percent faster, and 4G speeds were almost 12 percent faster.

A similar trend was recorded for upload speeds, but the gap between speeds nationally compared to cottage country was smaller. 5G users in cottage country saw uploads at 17.6Mbps, and 4G users saw 10Mbps. Comparatively, national users saw an upload speed of 19.8Mbps with 5G and 11.8Mbps with 4G.

The report notes the differences in mobile networks between cottage country users and national users begin and end with mobile upload and download speeds.

Examining streaming video over mobile, there was no “statistically significant difference” in the experience when connected to 5G. A small difference when comparing the 4G experience was reported.

There was also no difference while gaming or using over-the-top (OTT) voice app services, including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

“The quality of users’ experience in cottage country regions while streaming videos, playing multiplayer mobile games and using voice app services, was on par with the national experience, with very little or no significant difference in scores on both 4G and 5G,” the study says.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Opensignal