State of Mobile Networks: Cambodia (August 2018)

Cambodia's 4G market is experiencing some growing pains. On the one hand, access to 4G signals is increasing steadily as two of the three major operators expand the reach of their LTE services. On the other hand, 4G download speeds are slowing down, which is most likely the result of 4G subscriber growth and increased mobile data demand in Cambodia. Those two trends are balancing each other out though. As 4G availability increases, overall speeds available to consumers are holding steady as LTE signals become easier to find.

Analyzing more than 639 million measurements collected from 52,019 devices in the 90-day test period starting April 1, 2018, OpenSignal compared the 3G and 4G mobile data services offered by the country's three major operators: CamGSM's Cellcard, Viettel's Metfone and Smart Axiata. In addition to looking at our metrics on the national level, we performed a closer examination of the capital Phnom Penh. Let's start first with our national metrics and the conflicting trends we see in 4G.

Speed vs. availability — a 4G balancing act

The level of 4G access is on the rise in Cambodia, and no operator exemplified that trend more than Smart. Its 4G availability score jumped a remarkable 9 percentage points in the six months since our last Cambodia report. During the 90-day test period, our Smart users were able to tap into an LTE connection 78.2% of the time. Metfone also saw a smaller bump in 4G reach, while Cellcard's 4G availability score has remained relatively flat over the last six months. In our last report, we recorded a three-way draw between the major operators in this metric, but Smart's big gains in this test period granted it sole claim to our 4G availability award.

In 4G download speed, we saw the opposite trend. Cellcard held onto our 4G download award for the third report in a row, but its average LTE connection speed fell by nearly 3 Mbps to 16.5 Mbps over the last six months in our measurements. We saw a similar drop in Smart's 4G download speed results, which fell more than 4 Mbps to 12.1 Mbps in the same timeframe. Metfone was the only operator that didn't experience a drop in its 4G download speed score, but with an average connection of 3.6 Mbps in our tests, its 4G download speeds were extremely slow — a full 13 Mbps below the global average measured in our last State of LTE report. Those slow speeds might be an indication of limited 4G capacity on Metfone's network or they could be a sign that Metfone is restricting the download speeds available to its customers.

While falling 4G speeds might seem like a worrying trend, it's quite common in countries where LTE services are relatively new. As operators scale up their 4G services, signing up more customers and expanding their LTE footprints, networks become loaded, which causes average connection speeds to fall. As operators upgrade network capacity, speeds typically rebound, often exceeding the initial speeds offered when their services first launched. We're already seeing Cambodian operators address the capacity issue with new LTE-Advanced upgrades and other network enhancements.

The rise in 4G availability in Cambodia means consumers aren't experiencing any drop in the download speeds they see day to day. LTE download speeds may be lower but 4G connections are more accessible, meaning consumers are spending less time on slower 3G networks. Our overall download speed metric measures the typical connection speeds our users see across an operator's mobile broadband networks. In the case of all three Cambodian operators we analyzed, overall download speeds have remained steady over the last six months.

In our remaining speed categories, we recorded another two big wins for Cellcard. It led in our 4G upload speed metric, averaging connections of 5.9 Mbps, and it topped the table in 3G download speed with a 2.8 Mbps average. Cellcard's competitors will need to work hard if they hope to unseat the king of our speed metrics.

Although Metfone's 4G speed scores didn't impress, its LTE network showed remarkable resilience in our final metric category, latency, which measures the response time of a network. Lower latency connections mean webpages begin loading quicker and real-time communications apps experience less lag time. Metfone won our 4G latency award with a response time of 42.8 milliseconds, but latency is improving across all Cambodian networks. All three operators had 4G latency scores below 50ms, a significant milestone for a country still in the earlier stages of LTE development. We also recorded significant improvements between reports in all three operators' 3G latency scores. Those faster network response times are sure signs of widespread infrastructure improvements across Cambodia.

Smart gains on Cellcard in Phnom Penh

In Phnom Penh we saw an interesting twist on our national metrics. Cellcard's measured 4G download speeds in the capital were far slower than its national average, but Smart and Metfone improved upon their national 4G download scores. The result was a draw for our 4G download speed award between Cellcard and Smart in the capital. In fact, Smart made a solid challenge in all four of our speed metrics in the city, registering a draw with Cellcard in every category. In 4G availability, Smart repeated its national win in Phnom Penh with an excellent score of 82.4% in our measurements. All three operators, however, had 4G availability results higher than 72% in the city, showing how much they've built out their LTE networks in the capital.

In any typical LTE network rollout, upgrades start in the big cities and then spread out to the rest of the country. So we can expect national 4G availability scores in Cambodia to continue their upward trend in the future. But as 4G services spread further, we may also see further declines in 4G download speed as consumers take advantage of those newly available signals, creating more pressure on limited capacity. The question is whether Cambodia's operators will meet that demand for more mobile data with additional network capacity.