How mature is 5G deployment? A cross-sectional, year-long study of 5G uplink performance
Khan, I.
; Ghoshal, M.
; Angjo, J.
; Dimce, S.
;
Hussain, M.
; Parastar, P.
; Yu, Y.
; Deng, X.
; Hawal, S.
; Huang, S.
; Rane, A.
; Wang, Y.
; Fiandrino, C.
; Orfanidis, C.
; Aggarwal, S.
;
Aguiar, A.
; Alay, O.
; Chiasserini, C.
; Dressler, F.
; Hu, Y.
; Widmer, J.
Computer Communications Vol. 237, Nº , pp. 108153 - 108153, May, 2025.
ISSN (print): 0140-3664
ISSN (online):
Scimago Journal Ranking: 1,40 (in 2023)
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1016/j.comcom.2025.108153
Abstract
After a rapid deployment worldwide over the past few years, 5G is expected to have reached a mature deployment stage to provide measurable improvement of network performance and user experience over its predecessors. In this study, we aim to assess 5G deployment maturity via three conditions: (1) Does 5G performance remain stable over a long time span (1 year)? (2) Does 5G provide better performance than its predecessor Long-Term Evolution (LTE)? (3) Does the technology offer similar performance across diverse geographic areas and cellular operators? We answer this important question by conducting two year-long measurement campaigns of 5G uplink performance leveraging a custom Android app: one crowd-sourced, cross-sectional campaign spanning 8 major cities in 7 countries and two different continents (Europe and North America), and one controlled campaign focusing on mmWave deployment at a fixed location in the downtown area of Boston, MA. Our datasets show that 5G deployment in major cities appears to have matured, with no major performance improvements observed over a one-year period, but 5G does not provide consistent, superior measurable performance over LTE, especially in terms of latency, and further there exists clear uneven 5G performance across the 8 cities. Our study suggests that, while 5G deployment appears to have stagnated, it is short of delivering its promised performance and user experience gain over its predecessor.
