While many smartphone users were thrilled by the blazing-fast speeds of 5G, which was commercialized in Vietnam on Tuesday, others have noticed that 5G seemed no faster than or even slower than 4G.

Over the past few days, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper has conducted several speed tests in Ho Chi Minh City on the 5G network provided by Viettel, the country’s military-run mobile network operator, using the same smartphone and the benchmarking app SpeedTest developed by Ookla.

At around 7:00 pm on Wednesday, Tuoi Tre tested 5G at a location on Phan Xich Long Street in Phu Nhuan District and recorded a download speed of around 52 Mbps (megabits per second) and an upload speed of some 38 Mbps, equivalent to the average speeds of current 4G services.

After running multiple speed tests at Viettel’s 5G experience center in District 10 on Tuesday morning, Tuoi Tre got a top result showing that the download and upload speeds were 779 Mbps and 58 Mbps, respectively, with a latency of 20 ms (millisecond).

Latency refers to the difference in time between when the cell tower sends data and when the destination device, like a mobile phone, receives the data.

Meanwhile, the respective download and upload speeds recorded at a site in front of the Caravelle Hotel in District 1 on Tuesday afternoon were just 101 Mbps and nearly 14 Mbps.

The lowest 5G speed was found at the intersection of Le Duan Boulevard, Dinh Tien Hoang Street, and Ton Duc Thang Street in District 1, where the download speed fell to around 36 Mbps and the upload speed was close to 23 Mbps, much slower than 4G speeds.

One day prior to the commercialization of Viettel’s 5G services, the network operator’s 5G in the Phan Xich Long Street area in Phu Nhuan District registered a peak speed of more than 360 Mbps, with a latency of 28 ms; while 5G speeds ranged between 125 and 250 Mbps on Tran Khac Chan Street late in the afternoon.

5G speeds also varied at some other locations, with the speeds reaching 280 Mbps near the University Medical Center of Ho Chi Minh City in District 5 and 250 Mbps on Nguyen Hue Street in District 1.

Viettel had announced at the launch of its first commercial 5G services on Tuesday that its 5G network could reach speeds from 700 Mbps to 1 Gbps, 10 times faster than 4G.

However, plenty of mobile users told Tuoi Tre that their experiences of using 5G services fell short of their expectations.

They complained that while their smartphones displayed a 5G signal icon, the actual speeds were the same as or even worse than 4G.

Speaking to Tuoi Tre on Tuesday, Le Nguyen Dan, head of the warranty and system software department of smart device provider Honor Vietnam, pointed out several reasons for the inconsistent 5G speeds in different locations, such as poor signal coverage, network overload during peak times, and technical issues with devices or the network infrastructure.

Some telecom experts explained that fluctuations in internet speeds are expected during the early stages of launching new network infrastructure.

Mobile users’ rush to try out 5G services also slowed down connections, they said.

“Mobile network operators need time to expand and improve infrastructure to serve the growing number of 5G users and to broaden coverage areas,” said a representative of a network provider, who requested to be anonymous.

In related news, more than 240,000 2G-only mobile subscribers in Vietnam were disconnected from Tuesday this week as the country phases out 2G services, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Before the 2G signal was switched off across the country, mobile network providers had introduced measures to transition the remaining 2G-only subscribers to 4G ones.

Local network providers confirmed that they will continue offering a free 4G phone to 2G-only subscribers switching to 4G until the end of 2024.

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