Why does nobody talk about how bad 5G can be in smaller European cities?

I used to assume fast internet was a given everywhere in the EU until I got to Porto last month and my mobile hotspot dropped to 2 Mbps during a Zoom call with a client. Now I check coverage maps before booking any Airbnb, not just the listing's claimed wifi speed. Has anyone else found a reliable way to test real-world speeds ahead of time?

2 comments

2 Comments

leobrown9d ago

People act like 5G was supposed to fix everything but the rollout in smaller cities is a total mess. I was in a town outside Lyon last spring and had to walk down to the main square just to send a text with a photo attached. The carriers hype up the big capital cities with all that millimeter wave stuff but leave the rest of us with the same old spotty 4G that still drops calls inside a stone building. Maybe the problem isn't the tech itself but the fact that telecom companies have zero incentive to make it work everywhere when they can just sell you a "5G" sticker on your plan. If you want reliable speed in a small city you're better off finding a hostel with a hardwired ethernet port than trusting the mobile network. You can mess with OpenSignal or similar crowd-sourced speed maps but even those are hit or miss because nobody bothers running tests in Podunk towns.

thea_chen9d agoMost Upvoted

Wait did they ever actually promise it'd work everywhere or was that just us assuming?