The connection of your mobile phone and its data on vacation is essential to be safe, locatable and enjoy sharing your trips. Ookla has made a comparison of 5G when using roaming service in different European countries.
If you are preparing for travel around europe this summer, you already know how important it is to anticipate the speed and operation of the line of your Android phone. Whether you want to share the best photos of your vacation on social networks or browse the Internet, it is important to know the differences between 5G performance depending on the destination, with the new European law.
Since last June 15, the European Union has started the Roam like home, which means that users can call, send messages and surf the Internet in any EU country at the same price as in their country of origin, as long as their rate is compatible. But, Are the speeds in another country the same as your own?
Ookla’s latest analysis of the roaming experience with Android devices in the European Union and the United Kingdom, based on data from Speedtest Intelligence in the second quarter of 2023, has produced some interesting conclusions.
Of the 28 countries analysed, only Spain, Romania (the fastest), Belgium, Hungary, Estonia, the United Kingdom and Greece recorded faster roaming speeds than local download speeds. So if this is one of your destinations you are in luck. Latvia, Malta, Ireland and Italy, showed slightly improved speeds. The rest, worse.
However, when looking specifically at 5G networks, the performance gap widens. Only Spain, Hungary and Poland showed faster roaming 5G download speeds than local 5G speeds during the same period.
It is important to note that all countries on the list experienced much higher average download speeds when using 5G when roaming compared to other slower technologies.
Fastest and slowest download speed in Europe
On the one hand, Italian roaming users in Portugal they experienced an average download speed of 317.94 Mbps on 5G, making them the fastest combination in all of Europe in that regard.
On the contrary, Slovak visitors to Poland experienced one of the slowest download speeds roaming between all technologies, reaching only 10.82 Mbps during the same period.
Latency issue persists
However, the report also highlights a major problem in relation to latency, which refers to the response time for requests sent over the Internet: Suffers significantly when roaming.
The data shows that residents of all surveyed countries experienced much higher multi-server latency during roaming in this period, that is, the mobile will take longer to load the pages and applications with an Internet connection.
If speed is your main concern when roaming, upgrading to 5G may be a worthwhile option. However, it is important to note that latency will continue to be an issue regardless of the technology used. So planning ahead and considering all available options can help you make the most of your vacation.