Think Tank Finds U.S. Wireless Speeds Among Best in World

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2022 — A study from a Washington D.C. think tank Tuesday found mobile wireless speeds in the United States are among the best in the world.

The Phoenix Center found that the United States is in the top 15 percent of all countries’ mobile download speeds.

“Once again, I find that across many cities located in nearly one hundred nations, U.S. broadband speeds are well above average,” said George Ford, the center’s chief economist and author of the report. “The evidence continues to belie the claim of lagging broadband speeds in the United States.”

The report, titled “A Comparative Analysis of Mobile Wireless Broadband Speeds in Cities Across the World,” comes less than a year after the center released a study that found that download speeds for fixed wireless connections in the United States are typically faster than they are in comparable countries. The study found that the U.S.’s upload speeds are also comparable to similarly economic-ranked countries.

Ford executed his research by sampling 98 countries’ mobile wireless systems, 53 of which were categorized as “high income” nations, making them comparable to the United States. Ford found that similar to fixed wireless, the United States mobile wireless networks offer high-quality data services that are comparable to other similarly positioned nations.