Comparative Performance Assessment of 4G and 5G Mobile Networks: Evidence from Municipal-Level Measurements in Colombia

This study compares 4G and 5G mobile network performance across Colombian municipalities using regulatory crowdsourced data. The dataset contains 471,800 indicator records from June 2023 through June 2026. Download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, and packet loss were matched by municipality, operator, and reporting period. Because published values are rolling three-month means, the primary analysis uses March and June 2026, yielding 1461 complete paired observations across 634 municipalities. Geometric mean ratios with equal municipality weights and municipality-block bootstrap intervals summarize the comparisons. The 5G/4G download ratio is 1.94 (95% bootstrap interval: 1.80–2.09); the corresponding ratios are 1.19 for upload, 0.90 for latency, 0.78 for jitter, and 0.68 for packet loss. All five indicators strictly favor 5G in 38.5% of municipality-weighted observations; this share is 25.9% when each indicator must improve by at least 10%. The download ratio rises to 2.59 with equal observation weights and to 5.49 in the 69 municipalities with complete reporting for all three 5G operators at both periods. Thus, average differences favor 5G, but their magnitude varies with sample composition and weighting, and improvements are not uniform across indicators. The findings describe a first-half-2026 performance snapshot, not causal deployment effects or long-term evolution; second-quarter data remain preliminary.