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South Australia smashes it in 4G download speeds

Domestic cricket gets underway in Australia in October – and South Australia will certainly be hoping to put in a better innings this summer than they did in last season's Sheffield Shield competition, when they ended up in last place. But the region has already beaten off its rivals to come top in OpenSignal's analysis of 4G download speeds. We've analyzed the average 4G download speeds and 4G availability of the seven largest states and territories in Australia to see how they're performing in LTE.

South Australia topped our average 4G download speed table with a hugely impressive score of 41.2 Mbps – the only one of the regions we examined to pass the 40 Mbps boundary. OpenSignal analyzed average 4G download speeds across Australia's seven largest states and territories in the 90 days starting May 01, 2018. We found that all but one of the regions topped the 30 Mbps milestone – but even the sparsely-populated Northern Territory managed a very respectable average LTE download speed of 29.7 Mbps in our measurements.

Victoria came second in our analysis with an average 4G download speed of 39 Mbps, followed by Queensland 37.9 Mbps — which narrowly pipped Western Australia's score of 37.8 Mbps. Bringing up the rear, we measured New South Wales' LTE download speed at 36.5 Mbps, Tasmania on 31.2 Mbps, and the Northern Territory with 29.7 Mbps.

But it was quite a different story in 4G availability. Victoria came top in our analysis of Australia's seven largest states and territories, the only region to pass 90% LTE availability with a score of 90.3%. Relatively-small Tasmania came in a surprise second with 88.5%, followed by New South Wales on 87.2%. There was hardly any light between Queensland and South Australia who both scored 86.8%, followed by Western Australia with 86%. The Northern Territory were some way behind the pack with a 4G availability score of 74.9%.

Australia came in the top 10 for 4G download speed in our most recent global State of LTE report with a national score of 36.1 Mbps – more than double the global average of 16.9 Mbps among the 88 countries we analyzed. And we have already recorded a 4G download score of over 50 Mbps in one of the major cities we examined in our recent Mobile Networks Update: Australia report. Judging by these speeds and our regional analysis, we wouldn't be surprised to see Australia's score grow by at least a couple of megabits in our next global report.

What's your experience of 4G speeds in Australia? Are they getting faster? And are there any notable differences in LTE availability between the states and territories? Let us know in the comments section below.