Optus still has the best 5G download speeds

Dylan Crismale - Digital Content Editor

Last updated 23 October 2024

Optus has dominated again in the latest Opensignal Mobile Network Experience report.

Opensignal is a leading independent insights company that tracks mobile network experience in Australia.

This report looks at the performance of Telstra, Optus and Vodafone's networks in four broad categories Overall Experience, 5G Experience, Coverage, and Consistency.

Out of 13 awards for the taking, Optus cleaned up with five outright wins and three joint wins. It's the seventh time in a row Optus won the category for fastest average 5G download speeds.

Optus' average 5G download speed came in at 209.1Mbps, 17% faster than Opensignal's Telstra users and 28% faster than Opensignal's Vodafone users. Optus' result was about the same as its performance in the previous Opensignal report from April.

National results - Speed (Mbps)

	Overall download speed	Overall upload speed	5G Download speed	5G Upload speed
Optus	69.5	9	209.1	17.4
Telstra	68.1	8.3	177.7	14.2
Vodafone	84.3	11.8	162.9	17.2

Optus won the overall and 5G categories for Video Experience, the overall category for Games Experience and was the joint winner with Vodafone for the 5G category in Games Experience.

These four categories are scored out of 100 points and based on criteria including fast load times, video quality and latency – which is the time it takes for data to travel to and from the server.

Optus again took the top spot for Consistent Quality (80.1%) and tied with Vodafone for Availability (99.3%), which are both scored as a percentage of tests and time users spent with signal, respectively.

You can see how each of these networks performed in each category here:

Opensignal report graphic displaying which categories the three telcos won

Not to be left behind, Telstra picked up the wins for both Coverage Experience categories for the third time in a row. Scored out of 10 points, it received 9.5 points for the Overall category and 6.7 points for the 5G category.

5G availability in Australia continues to grow. While Vodafone won the category with Opensignal's users being connected to 5G 53.3% of the time, all three network operators saw an increase in their 5G availability scores. Vodafone and Optus were each up by six percentage points, while Telstra was up by eight percentage points.

After the shutdown of Vodafone's 3G network its network experience has continued to improve. Optus and Telstra will shut down their 3G networks at the end of this month.

Opensignal runs tests on devices from a selection of users on each network via its own app. The data for this report was collected between July 1 and September 28, 2024.

See the full Opensignal Mobile Network Experience report for more results.

Looking for a new mobile plan?

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Dylan Crismale

Digital Content Editor

Dylan Crismale is a Digital Content Editor at WhistleOut, has been writing for almost a decade across a variety of Australian publications. He previously worked as a writer at Finder covering energy, internet and mobile plans. Dylan is passionate about finding the best deals to save people money and educating people about tech. When he's not sat at his desk Dylan loves working out, bingeing TV and hanging out with friends.

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