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February 2025 · All Articles
4G vs 5G failover compared for UK businesses. Speed, coverage, cost and which you actually need as a backup connection for your office.
For failover internet, 4G is the right choice for most UK businesses. 5G is faster but has significantly less coverage, particularly in smaller towns, industrial areas and rural locations. Since failover only activates when your primary connection fails, peak speed matters less than reliability and coverage consistency.
4G LTE: Typical speeds 20–100Mbps download, 5–30Mbps upload. More than sufficient for VoIP calls, card machines, cloud software and email during a failover event lasting hours.
5G: Typical speeds 100–600Mbps download, 30–100Mbps upload where available. Superior performance but only at locations with confirmed 5G coverage — which is far from universal in the West Midlands.
During an internet outage, you need the failover connection to activate reliably — every single time. A 5G connection that delivers 400Mbps 90% of the time but fails to connect in fringe coverage areas 10% of the time is worse than a 4G connection delivering 50Mbps with 99.9% reliability.
Telexico's Assure X uses multi-network SIMs that roam across all major UK networks to find the strongest available signal at your specific location — whether 4G or 5G. The SIM always selects the most reliable connection automatically.
5G failover is worth specifying if your premises has confirmed strong 5G coverage from multiple networks, you have very high bandwidth requirements during failover periods (video editing suites, large file operations), or you want the failover connection to match primary leased line performance closely. For most West Midlands businesses, 4G on a multi-network SIM provides all the reliability and performance the failover use case requires.
Yes — Assure X routers support both 4G and 5G. Our multi-network SIMs connect to whichever delivers the best signal at your specific location.
5G coverage is expanding across the West Midlands but is not yet universal. Coverage varies significantly between specific streets and buildings. Telexico can check coverage at your exact address.
Yes — 4G failover easily supports HD video calls. A single HD Teams or Zoom call requires 1–3Mbps — a fraction of available 4G speeds.
Assure X SIMs are available with 5GB, 10GB, 20GB and unlimited data. Most businesses experiencing a typical outage of 2–8 hours consume well within a 10GB allowance.