Philippines

Smart has now won the award for Video Experience on four consecutive occasions. This time it scored 54.2 points out of 100, which compares favorably against the score of 37.7 reported by our Globe users. Indeed, Smart’s lead has risen slightly from the 15.2 points (38.3%) we observed in our last report to 16.6 (43.9%).

Both operators have made impressive long-term progress on Video Experience. As we showed in a recent insight — and as can be seen above — between Q3 2018 and Q1 2020, Globe’s Video Experience score rose from 29.2 points to 40.9, an increase of 11.7 points (40.1%). Smart’s Video Experience score increased from 42.4 points to 53.5 points, a rise of 11.1 points (26.3%) over the same timeframe.

The Video Experience scores observed by our users in this reporting period on both operators’ networks have fallen since our previous report. Smart’s score declined less than Globe’s, our users on the two operators’ networks observed declines of 0.8 points and 2.1 points, respectively. However, given the impressive long-term trend and the unprecedented circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent declines are best interpreted as a temporary blip, rather than the start of a new trend.

Opensignal’s Video Experience metric quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's networks. The metric is derived from an International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach, built upon detailed studies that have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived video experience as reported by real people. To calculate video experience, we are directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using this ITU approach to quantify the overall video experience for each operator on a scale from 0 to 100. The videos tested include a mixture of resolutions and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.

This time, Globe and Smart are joint winners for our Games Experience award, after Smart became the first operator in the Philippines to win an award for this measure of the mobile experience at the national level in our previous report. The 1 point lead that Smart commanded in our previous report has dissipated to the point where there is no statistically significant difference between the two operators’ scores. As this is only the second report in which we have analyzed our Filipino users’ Games Experience, the declines in both operators’ scores cannot be viewed in the context of long-term trends, but given the extraordinary circumstances they are best attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Opensignal’s Games Experience metric quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination). Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.

Globe has succeeded in wrestling the Voice App Experience award from Smart. What had been a 0.8 point lead in Smart’s favor has been replaced with a 0.9 point margin of victory for Globe.

Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger, etc. — using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality. Voice App Experience for each operator is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100.

Smart has increased its lead on Download Speed Experience, as our users on its network observed average overall download speeds of 11.4 Mbps — up 0.9 Mbps (8.1%) from our last report. In addition, Smart’s lead has risen by 1 Mbps to 4.1 Mbps (55.2%) since our previous report. As we highlighted in a recent insight — and as shown above — our users on both operators’ networks have seen some remarkable improvements in their Download Speed Experience in recent years. Between Q4 2017 and Q1 2020, the average download speeds observed by our Globe and Smart users rose by 3.5 Mbps (84.2%) and 4.3 Mbps (78.1%), respectively.

In this report our Globe users saw their speeds fall slightly — by 0.2 Mbps (2.4%) to 7.4 Mbps. However, given the difficult circumstances and the operator’s impressive long-term progress this is no cause for concern and indeed only serves to highlight the resilience of our Globe users’ mobile network experience.

When we break down our users’ average download speeds by mobile network technology generation, our Smart users still observed the fastest 3G and 4G download speeds — 3.2 Mbps and 13.5 Mbps, respectively.

Little has changed in terms of Upload Speed Experience since our last report. Smart and Globe scored 4 Mbps and 2.1 Mbps, respectively. Smart continues to lead by an impressive — though slightly reduced — margin with its score exceeding that of Globe’s by 1.8 Mbps (85.4%).

Our Smart users observed faster average 3G and 4G upload speeds than their Globe counterparts. The average speeds our Smart users observed when uploading data over a 4G connection were 2.1 Mbps (80.8%) faster than those seen by our Globe users, while Smart’s 3G Upload Speed score was 2.7 times that of Globe’s.

Both Smart and Globe have made good progress since our last report on 4G Availability — the proportion of time that our 4G users spend connected to 4G services. Our Smart users saw 4G Availability rise by 3.5 percentage points, taking the operator above the 85% mark, while their counterparts on Globe observed a 2.6 percentage point increase. Globe’s score has broken past the 80% mark, which means that for the first time our users on both operators’ networks observed 4G Availability in excess of 80% in one of our Mobile Network Experience reports.

Smart’s lead over Globe in terms of 4G Availability has risen from 4.1 percentage points to 5, an increase of 1 percentage point since our previous report. This builds on the sterling work both operators have done over the past few years in this regard. In a recent insight we reported that between Q4 2017 and Q2 2020, Globe’s 4G Availability score rose by 14.5 percentage points, while Smart’s increased by 27.8 percentage points.

Overall, Smart users had access to 4G in more locations and for more of the time than Globe users because Smart has won both Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience and 4G Availability awards.

Smart has narrowly come out on top in our first look at 4G Coverage Experience in the Philippines. Smart’s score of 6.7 points out of 10, was 0.1 points higher than that of Globe’s.

Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience metric is a measure of how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-10, it analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.

In simple terms, 4G Coverage Experience measures the mobile coverage experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users — i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel. It considers all the areas that Opensignal users visit, the portion of locations that 4G is available to them, and locations that more users visit have higher importance to them.