A few years ago, seeing 4G on my phone usually meant apps loaded quickly, streaming started almost immediately, and browsing felt effortless. Now, the same 4G indicator often means holding my phone up for a better signal, waiting for apps to time out, and hoping to catch a brief 5G connection.
Has 4G itself become slower, or have carriers shifted so much capacity toward 5G that 4G gets fewer resources? Could network congestion, newer and more data-heavy apps, or weaker coverage also explain the difference? In some places, 3G even seems like it was more reliable than the 4G I get today.
4 Answers
There is also a measurement problem: apps have changed along with the network. Developers increasingly assume users have fast connections and load larger media, more advertising, and more background data. A banking app timing out could be caused by congestion or poor signal, but it could also be the app waiting on bloated resources or a slow service on the other end.
So the most likely explanation is a combination of heavier modern apps, more users sharing towers, carriers prioritizing 5G capacity, and situations where your phone is barely holding onto 4G coverage.
Congestion is probably the biggest factor in a busy area. More people now have 4G-capable phones, and they use them for high-bandwidth activities such as video streaming, cloud backups, updates, and social media. The tower may have roughly the same amount of capacity while serving far more active users, so speeds drop during busy periods.
Your signal strength can also be misleading. A phone may display 4G while connected at the edge of coverage, where interference and distance reduce the usable speed. Network performance depends on signal quality, not just the icon shown in the status bar.
4G can actually outperform 5G in areas with weak coverage. Lower-frequency 4G signals generally travel farther and pass through obstacles better, while some 5G frequencies need denser tower coverage. If you are outside a strong 5G area, your phone may fall back to a weak 4G connection at the edge of a cell.
Try comparing performance with 5G disabled in an area where you normally get a strong 4G signal. If it becomes stable there, the problem may be the phone repeatedly switching between marginal 4G and 5G coverage rather than 4G universally getting worse.
The main issue is shared capacity. Cellular networks have a limited amount of usable spectrum, and that capacity has to be divided among different network technologies and users. Years ago, 4G received a larger share because it was the primary standard. Now carriers are moving more spectrum and traffic toward 5G, while many more phones and devices are competing for the remaining 4G capacity.
It is less like 4G suddenly became technically slower and more like fewer lanes are available for it on an increasingly crowded road. Carriers have retired older 2G and 3G networks to reuse their frequencies, but that does not mean every bit of capacity has been assigned to 4G. 5G can also use newer transmission techniques more efficiently, so carriers may prioritize it when possible. Buying additional spectrum is expensive and limited by regulation, so adding capacity is not always straightforward.
Websites and apps have also become much heavier. A page that once contained mostly text may now load large images, trackers, animations, and video ads. So even if the radio connection is performing similarly, modern apps can make it feel much slower.
That matches my experience too. In rural or low-signal areas, 4G is often more consistent because the towers cover a larger area, even when 5G is theoretically faster.