Throughput

Throughput is what you actually get — bits per second delivered over a real link, after the protocol overhead, retransmissions, and contention have taken their cut. That last part is why it disappoints people. A cell might advertise a peak figure, but that peak assumes one user, perfect signal, top modulation, and full bandwidth all at once. Add a few dozen subscribers sharing the same airtime and your slice drops accordingly.

It helps to keep three numbers separate: peak (the spec-sheet best case), cell capacity (aggregate the cell can serve), and per-user throughput (what one device sees, which depends on scheduling and signal quality). When someone complains the "5G is slow" despite a strong bar count, the cause is usually a congested cell or a backhaul bottleneck, not the radio itself.