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Look how slow wireless speeds are in the US compared to the rest of the world

The US is the land of the free and home of the brave... and slow LTE speeds.

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According to a report from wireless signal mapping company OpenSignal from late 2015, smartphone users in the United States enjoy (or suffer) some of the slowest LTE data speeds in the world. 

The average LTE speeds from the main US carriers, including T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, and C Spire Wireless, is 10 megabits-per-second (Mbps). Other countries with the same average LTE speeds include Mexico, India, and Kazakhstan.

Citizens of New Zealand enjoy the fastest data speeds, which averaged at 36 Mbps. Singapore came in second with 33 Mbps, and Romania took third place with 30 Mbps.

But don't be discouraged if you're living in the US, because faster speeds doesn't necessarily mean you'd be watching videos, streaming music, or updating your social media accounts any faster.

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open signal lte speeds chart 9/15
OpenSignal

The 10 Mbps average LTE speed in the US is more than sufficient for most uses, and wouldn't affect your ability to stream movies, music, or browse the web and social media. For example, Netflix only requires 5 Mbps data speeds to stream a movie in HD (720p or higher), and Spotify only needs 320 kilobits-per-second (Kbps) to stream a song in the highest quality

10 Mbps is also plenty for general web or social media browsing.

The slower LTE speeds would only affect you if you need to download entire movies, a lot of music, or other large files in a hurry using your carrier's data connection. That would be unwise because you'd reach your data limit very quickly by downloading large amounts of data, resulting in potential fees for going over your data limit. It also doesn't bode well for the future when many believe we'll be getting most of our internet wirelessly instead of through wired broadband.

If you need to download huge files, it's best to do so on a WiFi connection. Otherwise, we'll be just fine with out 10 Mbps, thank you very much. 

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