‘5G edges out Wifi in speed, streaming’

Users in the Philippines had a better experience when using 5G than Wifi, with Opensignal noting that this is ref lective in areas such as speed, gaming experience, and streaming.

In its latest report sent to the media on Thursday, Opensignal said Filipino users’ average 5G download speeds are 5.3 times faster than those seen on Wifi.

“Our Filipino smartphone users clocked up an impressive 138.6 Mbps for 5G Download speed — 5.3 times and 8.8 times faster than the average download speeds seen when connected to Wifi or 4G, respectively,” the report read.

Wifi download speeds averaged at 10.4 Mbps.

“Clearly, the arrival of 5G changes the balance between cellular and Wifi connectivity—as 5G cellular connections are typically faster than on Wifi, whereas Wifi has the advantage when cellular users are connected to 4G,” the report read.

Historically, Opensignal said, Wifi was the superior connection versus mobile options such as 4G and 3G. But the “arrival of 5G means that Wifi is no longer always superior to cellular.”

“In fact, average 5G download speeds are faster than Wifi and 5G currently enables the best experience in the Philippines on average when playing multiplayer mobile games or streaming video,” the report read.

According to the same report, Filipino gamers better experience when playing multiplayer mobile games on smartphones when connected to 5G than on Wifi. 5G Games experience was at 62.5 points, a little better than the 59.5 points of Wifi Games experience.

similarly, Filipino users had the best Video experience when streaming via 5G. Their 5G Video experience was at 68.6 points versus the Wifi Video experience of 47.7 points.

“However, Wifi will continue to have an important role—especially when backing up files and downloading large apps due to the low cost of data it provides compared to many mobile plans,” Opensignal’s report read.

It also noted that 5G services have to be expanded “considerably because in the majority of locations only 4G is available—our 5G users in the Philippines connected to 5G 13 percent of the time and were on average connected to a 5G signal in four out of 10 locations they visited in the 90 day period starting on 1st March 2022.

Opensignal also noted that Wifi users also have to upgrade their devices in order to improve their experience.