Fibre vs Cable vs 5G: Comparing Real-World Download Speeds
Three technologies, three very different shapes of performance. The headline speed is the least useful way to tell them apart.
Three technologies now compete for the same household, and they advertise similar headline numbers. They behave very differently in practice, and the differences show up in places the headline never mentions.
The short answer
Fibre wins on upload and consistency, cable competes on download but is asymmetric and shared, and 5G is the most variable of the three while being the easiest to install.
Side by side
| Fibre (FTTP) | Cable (DOCSIS) | 5G home | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical download | 300 – 2000 Mbps | 200 – 1200 Mbps | 100 – 900 Mbps |
| In MB/s | 37.5 – 250 | 25 – 150 | 12.5 – 112.5 |
| Typical upload | 300 – 2000 Mbps | 10 – 50 Mbps | 10 – 100 Mbps |
| Upload in MB/s | 37.5 – 250 | 1.25 – 6.25 | 1.25 – 12.5 |
| Latency | 2 – 10 ms | 10 – 30 ms | 20 – 50 ms |
| Peak-time drop | Minimal | Noticeable | Significant |
| Weather sensitive | No | No | Somewhat |
Fibre
Light through glass, all the way to the building. It is the only one of the three with no shared medium between you and the exchange, which is why its numbers are boring in the best possible way — you tend to get what you pay for, at 8pm as much as at 3am.
- Symmetric. A 500 Mbps fibre plan usually uploads at 500 Mbps too — 62.5 MB/s. This is the single biggest practical advantage over cable.
- Consistent. Little peak-time degradation.
- Low latency. Best option for competitive gaming and video calls.
- Limited availability, and installation can require physical work.
Cable
Coaxial cable shared with your neighbourhood. Modern DOCSIS 3.1 delivers genuinely fast downloads, and cable is widely available where fibre is not.
- Strongly asymmetric. A '1000 Mbps' cable plan often uploads at only 35 Mbps — 4.4 MB/s. Sending a 4 GB video takes about 15 minutes.
- Shared local segment. Evening speeds can fall noticeably when the neighbourhood is online.
- Download performance is competitive with fibre; everything else is not.
5G home internet
A fixed wireless receiver talking to a nearby mast. It has transformed options in areas with poor wired infrastructure, but it inherits every characteristic of a radio link.
- Highly variable. Speed depends on distance to the mast, obstructions, mast load and even weather. Two houses on the same street can get very different results.
- Congestion-sensitive. Masts are shared with mobile users, so evening performance can drop sharply.
- Higher latency and more jitter, which matters for gaming and calls more than for streaming.
- Trivial to install — plug it in — and often has no fixed contract.
- Data caps or fair-use policies are more common than on wired plans.
What each one means for real tasks
| Task | Fibre 500/500 | Cable 500/25 | 5G 300/30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Download a 50 GB game | 13 min | 13 min | 22 min |
| Upload a 4 GB video | 64 s | 21 min | 18 min |
| Back up 100 GB to cloud | 27 min | 8 h 53 m | 7 h 24 m |
| 4K stream | Fine | Fine | Fine |
| Competitive gaming | Excellent | Good | Variable |
Notice that all three download a game in a similar time, and differ by an order of magnitude on upload. The headline number is the one place they look alike.
Choosing
- If fibre is available and priced competitively, take it. Symmetry and consistency are worth more than a bigger download headline.
- Cable is a strong second if your usage is download-heavy — streaming, gaming, browsing — and you rarely upload large files.
- 5G suits renters, temporary homes, and anywhere wired options are poor or absent. Test it during peak evening hours before committing.
- Whatever you choose, convert both figures to MB/s before comparing — the calculator makes the real difference obvious in a second.
The takeaway
For most households the download speeds of all three are already more than sufficient. The real differences are upload capacity, latency and how much the connection degrades when everyone is home.
Those three things never appear on the billboard, which is precisely why they are worth checking.