U.S. 5G networks fell short of key benchmarks needed to support AI applications, according to a new report from Ookla. The report, titled “Beyond Download Speed: Benchmarking 5G Mobile Networks Against AI Workloads,” used 2025 Speedtest Intelligence data to evaluate 86 mobile operators across 22 markets worldwide.
Ookla found that download speed — the metric often used to market mobile networks — no longer predicts whether a network can handle AI traffic. Instead, the company measured upload capacity, latency under network load, and the connection quality between 5G mobile networks and cloud AI platforms.
The U.S. missed Ookla’s latency threshold for text-based AI, which requires multi-server latency under 50 milliseconds. U.S. networks recorded 50.5 milliseconds, joining South Korea, India, and Spain in the study’s group of markets to fall short of that mark.
Upload capacity emerged as a significant weak spot. The U.S. ranked at the bottom of all 22 markets studied in the share of network throughput allocated to uploads, dedicating just 5.1% to the uplink. Ookla noted that AI traffic increasingly demands more upload capacity than 5G networks were originally designed to handle, with applications like conversational AI and AI agents sending substantially more data upstream than earlier mobile use cases.
U.S. carriers also lagged on upload speed. Ookla reported that the fastest U.S. carrier, T-Mobile, recorded a median upload speed of 13.94 Mbps, describing the result as leading “a tightly clustered field of U.S. carriers.” That figure was less than a quarter of the 57.50 Mbps median upload speed posted by e& in the United Arab Emirates, the top performer in the global dataset.
The findings arrive as broadband providers continue shifting investment across network technologies. A recent CostQuest Associates analysis found that U.S. fiber access grew in the last half of 2025 while 5G growth slowed. As AI-driven traffic continues reshaping 5G network demands, U.S. mobile operators will likely need to prioritize upload capacity and latency performance alongside coverage growth.
