Opensignal report: Global mobile network experience worldwide
In the third Global Awards report, Opensignal once again directly compares operators from around the world to recognize those on which their users had the best mobile experience.
The best Video Experience in the world is in the Netherlands
T-Mobile Netherlands and KPN are the global winners for video experience, with statistically tied scores of 79.4-79.6 points on a 100-point scale. Their domestic rival, Vodafone Netherlands, is close behind, sharing third place with three other operators. Norway’s operators have also performed strongly with all three placing as Global Leaders for Video Experience. Amid results dominated by Europe, only two Asia Pacific operators are Global Leaders: South Korea’s SK Telecom and Singapore’s StarHub.
South Korea’s LG U+ and SK Telecom are top for Games Experience
Opensignal users had their best experience playing multiplayer mobile games on LG U+ and SK telecom’s networks. The two operators are the Global Winners for Games Experience, with identical scores of 88.4 points on a 100-point scale. Their scores were around 29 points higher than the global average of 59.3 points. KT is third with 86.6 points, ahead of two operators from the Netherlands — T-Mobile and KPN—which are tied in fourth place. The three South Korean operators were the only ones in the Excellent (85 or above) category.
Three operators are Global Winners for the App Experience
LG U+, SK Telecom, and Czech Republic’s Vodafone have statistically tied for the highest global score for Voice App Experience with scores in the 83.6-84 range. This means that our users had their best experience on these operators’ networks when using over-the-top voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger.
The fastest average download speeds in the world were seen on SK telecom
SK Telecom wins the global Download Speed Experience category as our users reported average download speeds of 143 Mbps. SK Telecom’s Download Speed Experience was 4.9 times the global average of 29.4 Mbps. While South Korea’s other operators — LG U+ and KT — are in second place with statistically tied scores around 100 Mbps, no other operator scored above 80 Mbps.
Denmark’s 3 is the Global Winner for Upload Speed Experience
Our users observed the highest average upload speeds of 20.9 Mbps on Danish operator 3’s network, which was 2.4 times the global average of 8.8 Mbps. No other operator breached the 20 Mbps mark, although three Global Leaders had scores above 19 Mbps: Swisscom, LG U+ and SK telecom. 3’s success is due to a massive 62.9% increase in its Upload Speed Experience between H2 2020 and H2 2021 — which also makes it a Global Rising Star for Upload Speed Experience.
Users spent the most time connected to 4G or 5G on LG U+ best mobile experience
South Korea’s LG U+ is the outright global winner for 4G availability, with an almost perfect score of 99.8%. It is closely followed by Japan’s au and India’s 4G-only operator, Jio. Higher 4G availability scores mean that our users spent less time on older mobile technology, such as 2G and 3G, or without any signal at all. The average global 4G availability across all operators with a 4G network was 86.5% — which LG U+ exceeded by an impressive 13.3 percentage points.
Opensignal’s 2022 Global Rising Stars best mobile experience
We now take a look at Opensignal’s Global Rising Stars: the top 30 operators around the world on which users have seen the greatest improvement in their mobile network experience in the last year. Opensignal compares their experience between the second half of 2020 and the same period in 2021.
Opensignal has Global Rising Stars awards for all six key measures of the real-world mobile network experience they have covered above. Five metrics featured in the last Opensignal Global Awards report — Video Experience, Voice App Experience, Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience and 4G Availability — and they include Games Experience Global Rising Stars for the first time.
Global Rising Stars celebrate the recent achievements of those operators who have made rapid progress in improving the experience of their users in a short period of time. By contrast, Opensignal’s Global Winner awards highlight the fruits of many years of cumulative effort and investment in comparing the current state of users’ mobile experience on different operators.
Some operators have significantly improved the mobile experience of users across most of the metrics Opensignal has analyzed. Claro El Salvador is a Global Rising Star in all six categories, while five operators are Global Rising Stars in five measures of the mobile experience: Globe in the Philippines, Smartfren in Indonesia, and Iraq’s Asiacell and Zain — driven by their recent ongoing 4G rollouts — and India’s Jio.
Looking across India, out of Jio’s rivals, only Vi and BSNL have picked up Global Rising Stars—Vi for 4G Availability and BSNL for Voice App Experience.
A further six operators collected four Global Rising Star awards apiece, including the Philippines’ Smart, Bahrain’s Zain, Libya’s Libya, and Iraq’s Korek.
Vodafone Germany picked up three Global Rising Star accolades—for Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience, and 4G Availability—while local rival O2 is a Global Rising Star for 4G Availability.
Two Ukrainian operators have also made impressive progress — lifecell is a Global Rising Star in all three experiential categories — Video Experience, Games Experience and Voice App Experience, while Kyivstar is one in the first two of these categories.
In Saudi Arabia, Mobily has picked up the most accolades in this section — it is a Global Rising Star for both Games Experience and Voice App Experience. It is followed by STC, which is a Global Rising Star for Games Experience.
Over in Colombia, Tigo is the only operator to gain recognition at the global level in this report — it is a Global Rising Star for both Upload Speed Experience and 4G Availability.
Turning finally to Taiwan, GT is the only operator to pick up any Global Rising Star awards — the operator achieves this category for both the gaming experience and Voice App Experience. best mobile experience
