If mobile internet access is crucial for you when traveling in Europe, here are the fastest networks

Saltstraumen, Norway. Lapland. photo by arihak
Saltstraumen near Bodö in Norway.

Very few travelers plan their trips in Europe based on average mobile network speed and reliability in a destination, but if you are planning to work and attend videoconferences, network experience will make a difference to you. For a traveler, mobile network access is the principal way to login to the internet either on a phone or by using a mobile Wi-Fi router that connects all your internet-capable devices to a local 4G or 5G network.

Getting a local pre-paid SIM card for internet access is a good way to get online in any European country, especially if you have a Wi-Fi router where you can insert the SIM card. Naturally, you may use roaming feature of your mobile network plan as well, but roaming cost can be a budgeting factor. Owners of SIM cards purchased in an EU country can roam in other EU countries at their home prices.

Mobile network access speeds are a tricky thing to measure. If you don’t see the same average speeds on your device as the list below indicates, it doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong with your phone or with the list of average speeds. The further away you are from a mobile network node (cell tower), the slower the average access speed for a device is. That is how mobile network signaling works. For instance, the mind-boggling high speeds achieved in 5G networks require a perfect short-distance signal.

Here is a list of European countries and average download speeds in mobile networks in those countries. The data was collected by Open Signal in 2022 and 2023.

  • Norway – 102.3 mbps
  • Denmark – 98.9 mbps
  • Netherlands – 81.7 mbps
  • Finland – 71.6 mbps
  • Bulgaria – 71.1 mbps
  • Croatia – 66.2 mbps
  • Sweden – 66.2 mbps
  • Switzerland – 60.3 mbps
  • North Macedonia – 58.2 mbps
  • France – 53.5 mbps
  • Lithuania – 52.6 mbps
  • Estonia – 52.2 mbps
  • Germany – 51.1 mbps
  • Austria – 49.9 mbps
  • Portugal – 47.5 mbps
  • Serbia – 45.5 mbps
  • Slovakia – 45.2 mbps
  • Slovenia – 45.1 mbps
  • Latvia – 43.9 mbps
  • Belgium – 43.8 mbps
  • Albania – 41.8 mbps
  • Greece – 41.3 mbps
  • Montenegro – 40. 3mbps
  • Czech Republic – 39.5 mbps
  • Hungary – 35.7 mbps
  • Spain – 34.8 mbps
  • Ireland – 33.5 mbps
  • Romania – 33.1 mbps
  • UK – 33.0 mbps
  • Poland – 32.8 mbps
  • Italy – 32.4 mbps
  • Moldova – 28.9 mbps
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina – 22.0 mbps
  • Kosovo – 18.6 mbps

Usually geographically large countries tend to have network coverage problems simply because distances between towns can be long, and providing network access to every corner of a country is not economical. With that in mind, it is a surprise to find large countries in North Europe in top positions in the ranking. Norway, Finland and Sweden have one of the fastest mobile networks as reported by Open Signal. On the other hand, large countries in South Europe, like Spain and Italy have one of the slowest network speeds.

Readwrite reported.