Global Mobile Experience

Country-level comparison

Analysts
Chris Mills
Fiona Armstrong
Annual Report
SEPTEMBER 2020 www.tutela.com
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Table of contents

Key findings 5

Excellent Consistent Quality 6

Core Consistent Quality 8

Median Download speeds 9

Methodology 10
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Introduction

What constitutes the best mobile networks in

the world? In the minds of many, faster is
always better. In the race to 5G, we hear
stories of gigabit speeds and operators
competing to have the fastest 5G on the
market. However, the speeds experienced by
consumers during every-day mobile usage
tend to be significantly lower – and for many
of us, our networks seem just fine, most of
the time.

This suggests that the best network may be

something different – a network that allows
us to do the activities we want, when we
want to. In practical terms, this means a
network which is both reliable and meets the
requirements of the applications we use
every day. After all, there’s not much use in a
mobile device that can reach high speeds
when you’re standing in a specific street
corner if you spend most of your time
moving around somewhere else. More to the
point, infinitely increasing download speeds
does not necessarily improve all aspects of
network experience.

This is where two composite quality metrics

– Excellent and Core Consistent Quality –
come in. These measure how mobile
connections compare to popular use cases
to represent how often a mobile experience
is good enough for a consumer to do what
they want when they want.
INTRODUCTION PAGE | 04

As the below graph demonstrates, above a This report uses over 1.4 billion mobile
certain threshold (around 8Mbps), increased download and latency tests on a 3G, 4G or
average download speeds for users give 5G connection, collected worldwide between
diminishing returns in this regard - both for 16th August 2019 and 15th August 2020.
higher-intensity use cases and routine ones.

Methodology note: Unlike Tutela’s country-level benchmarking reports, the global

report includes all records for a given country, including those collected outside of
Common Coverage Areas, and users on flanker brands and MVNOs. The reason for this
is because this report seeks to represent the overall experience of mobile subscribers in
a country, rather than a comparison of subscriber experience between parent-brand
operators. Statistical ties are indicated with an “=” in the country rankings. Cases when a
country has error bars overlapping one, but not all, of the countries with the next-
highest rank are indicated with a “*”.
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Key findings

The Nordic countries frequently

outperform any other region, leading the
way for mobile experience in both
Europe and the wider world. Norway
places first for Excellent Consistent
Quality, while Denmark and Sweden rank
first and second for Core Consistent
Quality.

Individual countries that excelled in their

region were Singapore and South Korea
in Asia, Australia and New Zealand in
Oceania, Canada in North America and
Uruguay in South America.

Despite the marketing hype around faster

speeds, above a point faster speeds
deliver little in terms of network
experience improvement. Switzerland,
who had the fastest median download
speeds, was ninth when it came to
Excellent Consistent Quality – beaten by
countries with download speeds that
were up to 19% slower.
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Excellent Consistent Quality

When it comes to Excellent Consistent enough for high-intensity use cases like
Quality, European – and in particular Nordic 1080p video streaming, group HD video calls
– networks excel. Users in Norway overall or real-time mobile gaming on the go.
have the best mobile experience in the Iceland draws with the Netherlands for
world, with 89.6% of mobile connections on second place, while Denmark ranks fifth, and
a 3G, 4G or 5G connection being good Finland and Sweden are both in the top 20.

Full ranking available here.

EXCELLENT CONSISTENT QUALITY PAGE | 07

Outside of Europe, the top-ranked country is

South Korea, which placed joint ninth with
Switzerland with an Excellent Consistent
Quality of 85.6%. While South Korea has one
of the most advanced 5G deployments in the
world, traffic management and choices in
data prioritization and plan structure mean
many users do not routinely see the full
speed potential of the networks. Japan and
Singapore follow closely behind South
Korea, ranking at 11th and 12th respectively
with Excellent Consistent Quality results of
85.4% and 84.9%.

In Oceania, Australia leads for Excellent

Consistent Quality, tying for 15th place
globally with a result of 83.0%. New Zealand
is close behind, tying for 20th place at
81.6%. Canada leads among North American
countries, placing 26th overall with an
Excellent Consistent Quality of 79.1%. The
US was six places behind at 32nd, with a
result of 75.4%.

Morocco was the highest rated country in

Africa at joint 42nd, with an Excellent
Consistent Quality at 69.2%. South Africa
was just a hair behind at joint 47th. South
America also entered the ranking at joint
42nd, with Uruguay placing the highest of all
South American countries. Argentina was
next, ranked at joint 52nd, with an Excellent
Consistent Quality of 66.6%.
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Core Consistent Quality

For Core Consistent Quality, we see a similar Asia, at joint 15th, with a Core Consistent
picture. Again, Europe holds the top of the Quality of 95.2%. Singapore was next among
leader board and accounts for the full top 10 Asian nations, at 20th (94.7%). In Oceania,
positions. Denmark comes out first overall, New Zealand and Australia drew with Core
with a Core Consistent Quality of 97.5% - Consistent Quality results of 95.0%. Canada
0.5% above second-place Sweden. The was again top for Core Consistent Quality in
Nordics continued to do well, with Norway at North America at 94.1% (ranked joint 23rd
4th and Iceland at 6th, although Finland was overall), with the US next at 92.8% (joint 30th
a little lower at 34th. The top 30 countries overall). Uruguay placed highest among
are all extremely close, with less than 5% South American countries at joint 34th (Core
separating 1st from 30th. Outside of Europe, Consistent Quality: 91.5%), while Tunisia was
Lebanon was the highest rated country in top in Africa at 51st (88.9%).

Full ranking available here.

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Median download speed

While at Tutela we believe that average consumers of 29.8 Mbps. Singapore is

(median) download speeds paint only a second at 29.7 Mbps, Netherlands third at
limited picture of user experience, download 29.6 Mbps and then Canada fourth at 29.2
speeds have been traditionally used as one Mbps. Australia placed top in Oceania at
of the primary metrics of network 25.2 Mbps (13th overall), Morocco was top
superiority. For median download speeds, in Africa at 15.3 Mbps (46th overall), and
rankings are much more competitive Uruguay again leads in South America at
between regions. Switzerland wins overall, 14.3 Mbps (joint 48th overall).
with a median speed experienced by

Full ranking available here.

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Methodology

Tutela is an independent crowdsourced data

company with a global panel of over 300
million smartphone users. We gather
information on mobile infrastructure and test
wireless experience, helping organizations in
the mobile industry to understand and
improve the world’s networks. Tutela is a
member of the Comlinkdata family.

Tutela collects data and runs network tests via

software embedded in a diverse range of
consumer applications, which enable the
measurement of real-world quality of
experience for mobile users, 24/7.

Tutela measures mobile experience based on

the real-world performance of actual network
subscribers for a given brand, inclusive of
occasions when a network or tariff may be
throttled or congested. Results in this report
are based on a testing configuration designed
to represent the typical (rather than
maximum) performance that users
experience. We use a 2 MB file to perform our
download testing and a 1 MB file to perform
our upload testing. Latency performance in
this report reflects one-way UDP latency.
Tests are conducted against the same content
delivery networks that power many of the
world’s most popular consumer applications
and websites, and as such reflect the end-to-
end performance of the network.
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Consistent Quality

Download speed is most often used as a

proxy for network quality, but while
download throughput is important, it’s just
one of several crucial requirements for a
“good” connection.

As operators have upgraded 3G networks

through to the latest 5G technology,
theoretical (and even real-world) peak
throughput speeds have increased to where
they vastly outstrip the maximum needed for
any current use-case. Real-world speeds
above 100 Mbps are now common in parts
of the world, and with a 4K video stream —
which itself is rarely something smartphone
users need — using a fifth of that, average
download speed has lost some of its
relevance as the dominant statistic used to
measure the quality of wireless networks.

At its most basic, a good connection is one

that doesn’t get in the way of users doing
what they want to do. In the real world,
smartphone users aren’t running speed tests
all day — they’re browsing the web, using
apps, voice calling their friends, streaming
Netflix and YouTube, or making video calls.
To more objectively evaluate when
connections are (and are not) enabling users
to do those things, Tutela has developed a
standard called Consistent Quality.
CONSISTENT QUALITY PAGE | 12

Simply put, it’s two sets of thresholds, called on the download or server response
Excellent and Core. If a connection hits the component, towards the total percentage of
Excellent standard, it’s sufficient for the most “failed” tests against both sets of thresholds.
demanding mobile use-cases, like HD group Tutela bases the threshold values on the
video calling or 1080p video streaming.  A minimum performance requirements
Core connection is good enough for SD published by popular apps. We most recently
video streaming, web browsing, emails, and updated our Consistent Quality thresholds
VOIP calling, but users are more likely to on September 1st, 2020. Tutela’s consistent
experience delays or buffering when trying quality metric, as used in our reports, simply
to use more demanding apps. Tutela also measures the percentage of time that users
considers times when a Consistent Quality can hit the thresholds. The higher the
style test was attempted, but subsequently number, the more often users have a Core
failed for distinguishable connectivity issues or Excellent quality connection.

Excellent Quality

KPI Download Upload

Latency Jitter
Packet Time to
throughput throughput loss first byte

Minimum
acceptable 5 Mbps 1.5 Mbps 50 ms 30 ms 1% 3.2 s
value

Core Quality

KPI Download Upload

Latency Jitter
Packet Time to
throughput throughput loss first byte

Minimum
acceptable 1.5 Mbps 500 Kbps 100 ms 50 ms 5% 10.67 s
value
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Discover Tutela Explorer

Tutela Explorer is a powerful cloud-based solution for real-time analysis of crowdsourced

data. Using the platform, mobile operators can:

Create coverage and quality maps

Benchmark network quality and coverage across all operators
Drill down to any KPI at city, street or even building level
Analyse spectrum utilisation, performance and more

Visit www.tutela.com/explorer to learn more

Learn more
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Appendix

Country-level Percentages and Error Margins

To download the full table click here.

To download the full table click here.

APPENDIX PAGE | 15

To download the full table click here.

About Tutela
Tutela Technologies, Ltd., is an independent crowdsourced data company with a global panel
of over 300 million smartphone users. It gathers information on mobile infrastructure and
tests wireless experience, helping organizations in the mobile industry to understand and
improve the world’s networks. Data and insights provided by Tutela are trusted by the
engineering teams at mobile network operators and network equipment manufacturers
around the world and used to compare operators as well as inform decisions in network and
infrastructure planning and optimisation. The organization is headquartered in Victoria, British
Columbia.

Tutela does not collect any sensitive personal data and is compliant with international privacy
regulations including CCPA and GDPR.

For further information about the methodology, data and tools used to create this report,
please contact [email protected] or visit www.tutela.com.

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