Today, 87 percent of the population can rely on a 5G network. Proximus’ coverage is the highest, but other providers are also making progress.

Thanks to coverage of 65 percent of the territory, Proximus’ 5G network now reaches 87 percent of Belgian households. The BIPT announced this after a thorough investigation into the coverage and quality of the 5G networks of Proximus, Orange and Telenet. Orange’s network is available in 52 percent of the territory and covers 77 percent of the population. Telenet lags behind with 70 and 62 percent respectively.

There are a number of caveats to this. As a reminder, these numbers are for outdoor 5G connectivity. Inside the house the numbers drop drastically. In rural areas, indoor 5G coverage is virtually non-existent, but in densely populated areas you can gradually connect to the fast mobile network.

In addition, the quality of the 5G network is not always the same. Proximus generally has the fastest network with an average download speed of 136.8 Mbps, followed by Orange at 94.5 Mbps and finally Telenet at 90.7 Mbps. The provider offers the highest upload speed (30 Mbit/s), followed by Proximus (28.5 Mbit/s) and finally Orange (24.4 Mbit/s).

Train and wagon

If you get into a car or a train, your performance quickly declines. Proximus achieves 85.5 Mbit/s, Orange 64.3 Mbit/s and Telenet 55.5 Mbit/s. Of course, these numbers only apply if the connection runs through an area with 5G coverage and the train in question is not an old train used as a radiation cage. Experience shows that those who travel between large cities usually do well, but for a trip to the Kempen you are more successful on some sections of the route if you use smoke signals.

BIPT notes that the transition to 5G is urgent. The performance of 4G networks is starting to decline as these networks are at capacity. In order to continue to offer all users sufficiently fast connectivity, a switch to 5G is necessary.

Not surprisingly, providers are concentrating their expansion on densely populated areas, so that the expansion rate in Flanders and Brussels is higher than in Wallonia. Every year, network coverage is increasing and a larger part of Belgium is covered by 5G.