Opensignal has looked at the mobile network experience in seven of Colombia’s cities to compare the local mobile network experience our users had on four national operators — Claro, Movistar, Tigo and WOM. We covered the following Colombian cities: Barranquilla, Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Cali, Cartagena, Cúcuta and Medellín.
Our analysis shows that our Tigo users in Cali enjoyed the fastest download and upload speeds, clocking in at 21.3 and 10.8 Mbps, along with the best video experience across all the cities — 51.5 points on a 100 point scale. Tigo dominates Upload Speed Experience across the board, while WOM comes first for Games Experience and Voice App Experience, either solely or jointly.
Looking at the mobile experience of our users in Colombia’s capital city Bogotá — Tigo comes first in four metrics, comfortably beating its competitors. Our users enjoyed the fastest average speeds on this network, as Tigo scored the highest in both Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience — commanding leads of 0.9 Mbps (6.6%) over WOM and 1.2 Mbps (14.1%) over Claro, respectively. Tigo’s score for Upload Speed Experience was the second highest across all the operators in the observed Colombian cities, after Tigo’s score in Cali. Tigo was also the only operator to rate as Fair (40-55) for Video Experience and the only operator to hit the 99% mark in Availability, 0.6 percentage points ahead of second-placed WOM.
In the remaining two metrics — Games Experience and Voice App Experience — WOM placed first in Bogotá. It commanded leads of 5.1 points over second-placed Claro in Games Experience and of around 13.2 points over Tigo and Movistar, which were in a statistical tie for third place. For Voice App Experience, WOM beat all of its competitors by 3.7-4.1 points, as Claro, Movistar and Tigo were in a statistical tie.
Our Tigo users in Cali enjoyed the fastest speeds and best video services across the Colombian cities analyzed. Tigo in Cali had the highest Download Speed Experience score of 21.3 Mbps — 37% faster than WOM and the only instance across all seven cities of our users reporting speeds above 20 Mbps. Tigo in Cali also had the fastest Upload Speed Experience out of all the analyzed cities and the only case of our users observing average upload speeds exceeding 10 Mbps.
In Video Experience, Tigo’s score of 51.5 points was also the highest in all the observed cities in Colombia, as the operator commanded an impressive margin of victory over second-placed Movistar. Both operators placed in the Fair (40-55) category and Movistar came second for Upload Speed Experience as well, with a score of 9.2 Mbps.
In the remaining categories, WOM comes first for Games Experience, with a score of 59 points on a 100 point scale. It was in a statistical tie with Tigo for Voice App Experience with scores of 77.5-78.2 points. Both these operators tied for Availability as well, along with Claro, with scores of 98.5-98.8%.
Medellín is one of two cities in Colombia where WOM scored the highest in Download Speed Experience — 12.9 Mbps, beating second-placed Claro and Movistar by around 1.2 Mbps. Tigo brings up the rear for Download Speed Experience in Medellín — however, it comfortably leads in Upload Speed Experience with a score of 7.9 Mbps. Tigo also scores the highest for Availability — out users on this network in Medellín connected to 3G or better services 99.1% of the time.
WOM had the highest scores for both Games Experience and Voice App Experience, commanding leads of 4.9 and 2.6 points over second-placed Claro, respectively. However, Tigo and Movistar were in a statistical tie for the top spot for Video Experience, with scores of 34.3-35.4 points.
In Barranquilla, located by the Caribbean Sea, Claro was the highest scorer in four metrics — two outright and two statistically tied with WOM, while also placing second in two remaining categories (one solely and one jointly). Our Claro users enjoyed the fastest average overall download speeds in the city, clocking in at 17.5 Mbps — 25.1% faster than second-placed WOM. Barranquilla was the only city in Colombia where Claro had the highest Download Speed Experience score — this was also the second highest Download Speed Experience result across the analyzed Colombian cities, after Tigo’s score in Cali.
Video Experience was the other metric for which Claro had solely the highest score in the city — 45.4 points on a 100 point scale. Claro was the only operator to place in the Fair (40-55) category for this metric, while all of its competitors placed in a category below, Poor (under 40). On top of Video Experience, Claro also comes first for other experiential metrics — Games Experience and Voice App Experience — but this time, its scores were statistically tied with WOM.
Tigo had the highest scores in the two remaining metrics in Barranquilla — Upload Speed Experience and Availability. Tigo beats second-placed Claro by 0.6 Mbps in Upload Speed Experience. Tigo comes first in Availability, with our users connecting to 3G or 4G in the city for 99.2% of the time — 0.8-0.9 percentage points more than in the case of other Colombian operators, which were in a statistical tie for second place.
Cartagena was the other city in Colombia where our WOM users enjoyed the fastest average download speeds out of all four operators — clocking in at 14.4 Mbps, with no statistical ties with other operators. Claro comes second, 2 Mbps behind WOM. Meanwhile, Tigo takes the top spot for Upload Speed Experience with a score of 7.1 Mbps, ahead of statistically tied Claro and WOM.
WOM also leads in Voice App Experience and had the jointly highest scores for Availability (tied with Tigo) and Games Experience (tied with Claro). In Video Experience, Claro and Movistar jointly had the highest, statistically tied scores of 36.2-36.8 points. This marks the second city where Claro topped this metric, after Barranquilla, where the operator had the highest score solely. This was also the other city where Movistar had the jointly highest score for Video Experience, aside from Medellín.
In Cúcuta, Tigo and WOM had the highest scores for two metrics each, separately, while they also were in a statistical tie for the two remaining metrics. Our users on Tigo’s network enjoyed the fastest average upload speeds, clocking in at 8.3 Mbps — and the best Video Experience, with a score of 42.1 points, making it the only operator to place in the Fair (40-55) category in Cúcuta. For both metrics, Movistar placed second, although it had a statistically tied score with Claro for Upload Speed Experience.
Similar to other cities, WOM topped the ranks for Games Experience and Voice App Experience. Both Tigo and WOM had the highest Download Speed Experience scores, ranging from 14.1 to 14.9 Mbps. Claro, Tigo and WOM were all in a statistical tie for Availability, with scores of 97.5-98.4%, significantly ahead of Movistar which brings up the rear with a score of 96%.
In Bucaramanga, Tigo had the highest scores in three categories, WOM in two and both operators jointly had the highest scores in the remaining metric — Availability. Our Tigo users enjoyed the fastest average speeds in the city as the operator scored the highest for both Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience. Tigo also leads in Video Experience — 45.6 points on a 100 point scale, four points ahead of second-placed Claro — both these operators placed in the Fair (40-55) category.
WOM had the highest scores for Games Experience and Voice App Experience, with scores of 60.9 and 79 points, respectively. Meanwhile, Claro placed second in five out of six metrics, either individually (Upload Speed Experience, Video Experience, Games Experience) or jointly (Download Speed Experience, Voice App Experience).
Across the board, Tigo and WOM dominated the city metrics. Tigo leads in Upload Speed Experience in every city, while also taking all the top spots for Availability, either solely or jointly. WOM comes first for Games Experience and Voice App Experience, and was rarely in a statistical tie with another operator for these categories.
We saw different operators scoring the highest for Download Speed Experience — Tigo in three (Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Cali), WOM in two (Cartagena and Medellín) and Claro in Barranquilla — while in Cúcuta, Tigo and WOM were in a statistical tie for this metric. We observed a similar story in Video Experience — Claro, Movistar and Tigo had the highest scores across different cities, either solely or jointly. This was the only metric where Movistar had the jointly highest scores — in Cartagena and Medellín.
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