Glasgow Public and Private 5G Performance Dataset (2025): Acquisition and Comparative Analysis

Abstract The rollout of 5G promised gigabit speeds and sub-10 ms latency for smart cities and IoT, but real-world urban performance has remained poorly documented. We collected 720 outdoor measurements across 15 Glasgow neighbourhoods using all four major UK operators (EE, Vodafone, O2, Sky Mobile). City-wide averages were 671 ± 187Mbps download (peak 897Mbps in Springburn), 165 ± 68Mbps upload, 22 ± 7ms ping, and SS-RSRP of − 78 ± 9dBm. Suburban areas consistently outperformed the urban core, and signal strength showed almost no correlation with throughput ( r  = 0.02). In parallel, controlled laboratory tests of two private 5G networks—a Vodafone & Ericsson Mobile Private Network and a BubbleRAN Open RAN system—achieved up to 936Mbps download and latency below 18ms with significantly lower variability. The complete public 5G dataset, including timestamps, locations, devices, and methods, is openly released for reuse in propagation modelling, smart-city research, digital twinning, and 6G benchmarking.