Why is my 5G so bad? Worse than 4G actually...

[MikeLanglois]

So I have just gotten back from holiday in Greece, and while I was out there I did a speedtest and my down/upload speeds were 219Mbps and 131Mbps respectively. It was amazing.

I get home to the south east in the UK, and run a 5G speed test here. 9Mbps download and 0.50Mbps upload???

It was so bad, I actually switched my phone to 4G and managed to get 16.7Mbps download and 0.28Mbps upload.

Why is the service so bad in terms of speed? Not even just speed, the little up/down arrows showing network connectivity will be constantly on, but it still takes ages for anything to even start loading. I assume congestion, but it wasn't always a problem?

[Enlli]

The UK lags behind much of Europe when it comes to mobile coverage and data speeds. Much of it self inflicted by planning officers and NIMBYS.

Also most 5G relies on 4G infrastructure. If that's not up to the mark 5G is not going to be good either.

However, it does look like you may have capacity issues 

Guide: How can I sort out my network issues? 

https://www.o2.co.uk/apps/my-network

[japitts]

Much can depend how much 5G spectrum O2 has deployed on the sites covering your areas.

4G & 5G technologies are delivered over a combination of frequency bands, each with different radio characteristics. There'll always be local differences, but O2 does tend to perform worse than other networks on data speed benchmarking & comparison tests.