The Fastest and Slowest Countries for Travel Data
Why medians mislead
A country can post a strong median and still feel broken, because the median blends empty Tuesday mornings with packed Friday evenings. The tenth percentile is the number to plan around: it is the speed you get when the cell is busy.
Switzerland is a good example. The median is 112 Mbps and the tenth percentile is 39 Mbps, so even the bad moments are fine. Indonesia has a median of 38 Mbps and a tenth percentile of 7 Mbps, which is the difference between a fine day and a video call that fails.
The United States is the sharpest case in the whole catalogue. The median is 64 Mbps, which sounds comfortable, and the tenth percentile is 11 Mbps. A ratio near six between the two means the country you experience depends almost entirely on when and where you open your phone.
The top and the bottom, with the number that matters
| Country | Median | Slowest tenth |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | 119 Mbps | 42 Mbps |
| Switzerland | 112 Mbps | 39 Mbps |
| South Korea | 104 Mbps | 36 Mbps |
| Japan | 74 Mbps | 21 Mbps |
| United States | 64 Mbps | 11 Mbps |
| Indonesia | 38 Mbps | 7 Mbps |
| Tanzania | 24 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
| Fiji | 22 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
| Nepal | 21 Mbps | 5 Mbps |
The fastest median in the catalogue is 158.7 Mbps and the slowest is 18 Mbps.
What a slow tenth percentile actually feels like
At 5 Mbps a map still loads, messages still send and a photograph still uploads, slowly. What breaks is anything that needs a steady stream rather than a burst: video calls, live navigation in a car, and any app that gives up rather than waiting.
That is why the tenth percentile is the number to plan around. If your trip depends on a daily video call, look at that column and not the headline. If it depends on maps and messaging, almost every country on the list is fine.
5G, and the countries where the badge is doing the work
88 of 197 destinations in the catalogue are not full 5G. Some of those are 4G only outright, and some are partial, meaning the main islands and the large cities have it and nowhere else does.
There is a second distinction that matters more than the badge. A country running 5G standalone, like Singapore, South Korea or Japan, gives you a different experience from one running a 5G radio over a 4G core. It is the main reason two countries with similar 5G marketing can sit 40 Mbps apart.
We publish the 5G status per country in plain words rather than as a tick, because a tick cannot tell you that the coverage stops at the edge of the capital.
The one fix that actually works on a slow connection
Be in a different queue. That means attaching to a different network. Everything else, restarting the phone, toggling airplane mode, resetting network settings, is folklore that occasionally works because it forces a re attach to the same congested cell.
In most countries we run more than one upstream network, so switching is a real option: turn off automatic selection and pick the other partner. In 6 of 197 destinations there is exactly one, and each of those country pages names it before you buy, so you can see whether there is a second network to move to while you are still planning the trip.
Our metered plans have no throttle at all, so if you are slow it is the cell rather than the plan. The only throttle we run is on the unlimited day pass, at 2 GB a day full speed then 1 Mbps, and it is on the buy button.
What we would tell a traveller
In tier A countries, buy on price and stop thinking. In tier C countries, buy from someone who runs more than one network, because a single carrier having a bad day is your whole trip.
And check the tenth percentile for the specific country you are going to, rather than a regional average. Indonesia and Singapore are neighbours with a 15 fold difference in the number that matters, and no regional summary survives that.