The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the world's largest human gatherings. Over 2.4 million Muslims made the pilgrimage in 2019, and this year’s numbers reached almost as high — just under two million worshippers. The millions of pilgrims gathered together in a relatively small area puts immense pressure on mobile networks, leading to potential congestion and service degradation. In this report, we assess the resilience of the networks in Mecca during this year’s Hajj, held from June 14 to 19, by analyzing how the mobile networks handled the demand. We will focus on our users’ consistent quality to capture the real-life user experience.
The Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have reported record data usage during this year's Hajj — with 44.8 million voice calls at Mecca and the holy sites on Eid Al-Adha, with a total success rate above 99%. Data consumption reached 5.79 PB (petabytes), with the per capita usage doubling the global average of 380MB. To prepare for this, the CST announced that more than 6200 towers were allocated in Mecca, Medina and the Holy Sites. This includes over 4000 towers supporting 5G technology, an increase of 37% compared to last year. This is consistent and aligned with Saudi Arabia's ambitious roadmap for economic diversification, global engagement, and digitisation plans as part of Vision 2030. Improving the country’s 5G infrastructure plays a key role in this plan.
Key Findings
- Excellent Consistent Quality during the Hajj worsened most in the city center, at Mina and at Mount Arafat.
- While Excellent Consistent Quality dropped on stc’s, Zain’s and Mobily’s networks in Mecca on the dates leading up to the Hajj, it remained resilient throughout, and quickly rebounded.
- Comparing the experience in Mecca during the previous Hajj period to the most recent Hajj period, we see that Excellent Consistent Quality has remained stable, while average download speeds have increased on stc and Zain.
Consistent quality
Consistent quality measures how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. It measures download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, time to first byte and the percentage of tests attempted which did not succeed due to a connectivity issue on either the download or server response component. Excellent Consistent Quality (ECQ) measures the percentage of users’ tests meeting higher performance thresholds for activities like watching HD video, group video calls, and gaming. ECQ is more effective at capturing our users' experience compared to solely measuring download speeds, as the benefits of increased speed diminish past a certain point.
Mapping ECQ values to two kilometer grid squares before and during the Hajj shows similar stories for all three operators. While the center of the city was already suffering from congestion and poor performance, during the Hajj this worsened considerably, spreading out beyond the center. During the Hajj, the previously almost circular distribution of readings reaches out towards Mina, Mount Arafat and the Grand Mosque — showing clearly where users congregated in the greatest numbers during the pilgrimage.
While the influx of worshippers may have added significant load to the operators’ networks, all three managed to remain resilient. User experience dipped the greatest amount during the lead up to the start of the Hajj, when pilgrims began to arrive in large numbers but had yet to begin the rites of Hajj. Their presence led to increased congestion in busy locations. Stc and Mobily saw the largest decreases in score, although still scored higher than Zain.
During the Hajj period, the combined efforts of the operators and the reduced network load, as people were engaged in worship, allowed all three networks to recover quickly. Stc’s ECQ score stabilized, while Mobily’s and Zain’s performances nearly returned to their levels from the beginning of the month. The four-day moving average for Zain dipped just below 50%, while stc stayed above 55% and Mobily remained above 57%.
The number of people traveling to Mecca for the Hajj reduced during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has taken a while to recover — the number of pilgrims this year has rebounded to almost two million worshippers. Comparing the user experience during this year’s Hajj period to last year’s Hajj period shows steadiness for ECQ, with Mobily’s score even increasing slightly. Infrastructure and network improvements, along with new technology, have helped provide stability for the three operators in the holy city. Looking at the average download speeds on stc, Mobily and Zain, we see a different story than for ECQ. Speeds have increased by a third on stc’s network and a fifth on Zain’s, with Mobily’s score remaining roughly equal. Our data also shows time with no signal decreasing on all three networks — users now benefit from less time spent unable to connect to a network.
Like any large-scale event, the Hajj presents considerable challenges to mobile networks. Despite this, Saudi operators have effectively handled the surge in traffic and congestion. Opensignal’s ECQ metric, which reflects users’ real-life experiences, illustrates the resilience of these networks, with brief dips in scores quickly followed by swift recoveries. Additionally, Download Speed Experience highlights the progress made since last year’s pilgrimage, with notable improvements in scores for both stc and Zain. Continued investment by Saudi operators will bolster the networks further, ensuring an improved user experience and the capacity to manage even more worshippers.
To follow the developments in the rest of Saudi Arabia, Opensignal will continue to report on the mobile network experience in the market. To learn about how the experience of our users varies between mobile operators, please read our most recent Saudi Arabian report.
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