In this new analysis, we examine our smartphone users’ mobile experience on Japan’s expressways and highways, across all of the four Japanese operators. This analysis is a follow-up to our earlier insights on the quality of mobile experience around Japan’s major transportation areas, e.g. the Yamanote line, the Tokaido Shinkansen line, and the Japanese airports. Opensignal has also previously analyzed the experience of our users traveling on highways in the U.S., Germany, and Austria.
Key findings
- Au’s average download speeds are the fastest at 61.6Mbps around Japanese expressways and highways.
- Rakuten Mobile comes first for Upload Speed Experience and 5G Upload Speed.
- Au comes first for 5G Video Experience with a score of 78.3 points on a 100-point scale — the only operator to rate as Excellent (78 or above).
- Both au and SoftBank place in the Excellent (85 or above) category for 5G Games Experience around Japan’s expressways and motorways.
- SoftBank comes first for 5G Availability around Japanese expressways and highways, with a score of 24.6%,
- Our SoftBank users enjoy the most consistent quality of services as the operator leads with a score of 85.1%.
- All Japanese operators have high signal Availability scores around expressways and highways, which is important in case of a road emergency.
We focused on the experience of our users traveling around Japan’s most important expressways and highways, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The data from the Ministry covers:
- national expressways,
- motorways parallel to national expressways,
- motorways on general national roads,
- Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway
- designated urban expressways i.e. Shuto Expressway, Hanshin Expressway, Nagoya Expressway, Hiroshima Expressway, and Fukuoka-Kitakyushu Expressway.
Au’s average download speed clocks in at 61.6Mbps around Japanese expressways and highways — around 20% faster than statistically tied SoftBank and NTT docomo. Meanwhile, Rakuten Mobile comes first for Upload Speed Experience, with a result nearly twiceSoftBank’s score.
Japanese Road Traffic Act prohibits all drivers from using smartphones while driving except for hands-free calls. Long hours spent in a car make passengers reach for their smartphones to make the time pass faster. With this in mind, Opensignal looked at our three overall experiential metrics — Video Experience, Games Experience, and Voice App Experience, to see how these fared across the Japanese operators.
SoftBank and au jointly score the highest across the overall experiential metrics — Video Experience, Games Experience, and Voice App Experience. Regardless of their choice of operator, our Japanese users enjoy Very Good (68-78) video services around expressways and highways in Japan. This means our users are, on average, able to stream video at 1080p or better with satisfactory loading times and little stalling.
All Japanese operators also rate as Good (75-85) for Games Experience — most users deem the experience acceptable and do not experience a delay between their actions and the game.
Around Japan’s expressways and motorways, au comes first for 5G Video Experience with a score of 78.3 points on a 100-point scale. It is the only operator to rate as Excellent (78 or above) — our users on this network are on average, able to stream video at 1080p or better with fast loading times and no stalling.
Meanwhile, Rakuten Mobile takes the top spot for 5G Upload Speed around Japanese expressways and motorways. It commands a substantial lead over second-placed SoftBank, with nearly 45% faster average 5G upload speeds.
Both au and SoftBank place in the Excellent (85 or above) for 5G Games Experience around Japan’s expressways and motorways. This means the vast majority of users had an acceptable network experience. Nearly all respondents would have felt that they had control during a gaming session and received immediate feedback on their actions.
SoftBank comes first for 5G Availability around Japanese expressways and highways, with a score of 24.6%, beating au by 4.5 percentage points. This is the percentage of time 5G users on this network spend connected to 5G services.
Our SoftBank users enjoy the most consistent quality of services out of all four national Japanese operators around the expressway system, as the operator leads with a score of 85.1%. This reflects the proportion of tests that pass the requirements of Consistent Quality, along with the proportion of completed tests to all tests conducted.
NTT docomo, au, and SoftBank all tie for Availability with identical scores of 99.7%, while Rakuten scores a bit lower — 99.4%. Availability measures the proportion of time all Opensignal users on an operator’s network have either a 3G, 4G, or 5G connection. High scores for Availability around highways are especially important, as seamless signal availability is key for mobile users in the case of a road emergency.
Japan is one of the global pioneers when it comes to the development of advanced connectivity around its expressway and highway network. Japanese operators have been investing in 5G infrastructure around highways, exploring the possibilities of smart highways. Other companies test the feasibility of private 5G networks around metropolitan expressways or separate expressway lanes dedicated to self-driving trucks and supported with 5G communications. Seamless connectivity around highways is one of the key use cases for 5G rollouts, as it supports smartphone users’ connectivity needs — but also autonomous driving.
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