State of Mobile Networks: Taiwan (July 2018)

Taiwan is an island full of powerful LTE networks, but while in most of our State of Mobile Networks reports we can usually single out one or two dominant 4G operators, we can't do that for Taiwan. For the four 4G metrics we tracked in this report, we had four different winners. Chunghwa established itself as the leader in our 4G download speed metric. FarEasTone stood apart in both 4G upload speed and latency. Meanwhile GT and Taiwan Mobile tied for our 4G availability award. Those operators shared one thing in common though: all four prize winners had world-class scores in their respective categories.

For our Taiwan report, we analyzed more than 415 million data points collected by 32,117 users in a 90-day period starting March 1, 2018 to compare the 3G and 4G experience offered by Chunghwa Telecom, FarEasTone, Taiwan Mobile and T Star Telecom. We also examined the 4G metrics of LTE-only provider GT, the consumer brand of Asia Pacific Telecom. In addition to showing each operator's national results, we drilled down into our 4G measurements in Taiwan's four largest metro areas: Greater Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung and Tainan. Let's start first with our speed results.

Powerful networks, fast connections

Chunghwa grabbed our 4G download speed award, averaging LTE download connections of 35.1 Mbps in our tests. FarEasTone was less than 2 Mbps behind the leader though, with a measured average of 33.4 Mbps. The two were the only operators to break the 30 Mbps threshold in our results, and both operators' speed scores were double the global average for LTE download speed of 16.9 Mbps, as measured in our recent State of LTE report. Taiwan Mobile's measured 4G download average of 25.7 was also a very good result, but GT's score of 14.7 Mbps was on the slow side, more than 2 Mbps below the global average.

FarEasTone captured our 3G speed award with an average HSPA download speed of 8.8 Mbps in our measurements. But in a land chock-full of LTE signals, 3G connectivity is becoming a minor consideration. FarEasTone's 3G speed lead wasn't enough to overcome Chunghwa's 4G download advantage in our overall speed category, which measures the typical speeds consumers see across an operator's mobile data networks. Our Chunghwa users saw typical everyday speeds of 29.3 Mbps, though FarEasTone wasn't far off that mark as its users were able to tap into 27.7 Mbps overall speeds.

That competition between Chunghwa and FarEasTone in overall download speeds was mirrored in our city results. In Taiwan's two largest cities, Taipei and Taichung, Chunghwa and FarEasTone were statistically tied for our overall speed awards. In 4G download speed, FarEasTone drew with Chunghwa for our award in Taichung, but Chunghwa was the sole winner in Taipei, Kaohsiung and Tainan.

When we look at our final speed metric, there wasn't much of a contest. FarEasTone jumped ahead of all of its rivals in 4G upload speed, its score of 13.4 Mbps being more than 20% faster than its nearest competitor. FarEasTone also handily won our regional awards for 4G upload speed in three cities, drawing only in Tainan with Taiwan Mobile.

Passing the 90% mark in 4G reach

4G signals are certainly not hard to find in Taiwan. For the first time, all five operators achieved 4G availability scores of 85% or better in our measurements. Two operators, GT and Taiwan Mobile, passed the 90% threshold, while two others, FarEasTone and T Star, were less than a percentage point shy of the same mark. Signal for signal, Taiwan's operators are quickly joining the global elite in 4G availability. But GT and Taiwan Mobile were able to provide our users with a 4G connection more than 91% of the time, making the two operators joint winners of our 4G availability award.

Determining clear winners in Taiwan's cities was even more difficult as nearly every operator boosted their LTE reach in metro areas. We had draws in all four cities, and in the case of Taichung we recorded a five-way statistical tie. In Taipei the results were particularly impressive as four of the five operators racked up 4G availability scores over 90%.

For our final set of metrics, we examined latency, which is a measure of a network's response time. Low latency connections mean quicker load times on the mobile internet and less lag in real-time communications apps. FarEasTone won our 4G latency award with an impressive response time of 34.1 milliseconds, but Chunghwa and Taiwan Mobile also turned in sub-40ms scores in this metric. In addition, Taiwan Mobile grabbed our 3G latency award with a 40.7ms ping measurement, a particularly outstanding score that we would typically expect to see on LTE networks.

In terms of technological prowess, Taiwan is becoming a very competitive market. While Chunghwa and FarEasTone may have taken most of our awards, the close competition and diversity of winners in our key 4G metrics shows that no operator is emerging as the dominant mobile broadband threat. It will be interesting to see if Taiwan capitalizes on its gains to climb up global 4G rankings in future State of LTE reports. It hasn't yet joined the global 4G elite, but it's definitely on the cusp.