Germany

Telekom won our 4G Availability award fairly comfortably with a score of 85.5%, up nearly 4 percentage points since our last report. But the real story in this category was the rise of its rivals. Both O2 and Vodafone saw their 4G Availability scores jump in the last six months — O2's by over 7 percentage points, and Vodafone's by close to 10 percentage points.

Telekom is still over 6 percentage points ahead in our 4G Availability measurements. But its rivals are closing the gap, with Vodafone close to passing the 80% milestone in our measurements. And the 4G Availability race was even closer in Germany's cities, where Vodafone managed to score a draw with Telekom in all seven of the metros we analyzed (see Regional Analysis, below).

Telekom's showing in our awards table makes it clear it's still the dominant operator in the German mobile market. But its rivals are putting pressure on the leader, as both O2 and Vodafone continue aggressive 4G network upgrades and LTE 800 deployments. For its part, Telekom is not resting on its laurels, continuing 4G expansion (albeit at a slightly less aggressive pace than its rivals). We expect to see 4G Availability continue to rise over the next couple of years, as increased competition drives Germany's operators to improve their mobile experience.

Telekom came top of our Video Experience rankings — but we saw the closest race of all our award metrics in this category. Telekom and Vodafone were neck-and-neck with Video Experience scores of 70.2 (out of 100) and 68.3 respectively.

Interestingly, the gap between the three operators is even closer when we look at our 4G Video Experience supporting metric. Less than 4 points separated all three operators, while Telekom and Vodafone were statistically tied, both with scores just over 71 points. But Telekom's greater 4G Availability meant our users on its network were able to watch video over LTE more often, giving the operator the edge in our overall Video Experience rankings.

And we've seen some fairly impressive improvement across the board in this metric. Since our last look at Video Experience among Germany's operators six months ago, we've seen all three operators' scores increase by at least 7%. O2 saw the greatest jump of over 13% in its score to move from a Fair Video Experience rating to a Good rating, meaning streamed video exhibits some loading time before playback begins and some stalling, especially at higher resolutions. Both Telekom and Vodafone now have Very Good ratings, meaning more consistent fast loading times and only occasional stalling across all resolutions.

Germany's Video Experience is less impressive when compared to its European neighbors, however. In our analysis last Autumn, the country was firmly in the bottom half of our European table for Video Experience, below arguably less-developed markets such as Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia. And while Germany's operators have grown their scores, we've seen similar improvements elsewhere, meaning there is doubt as to whether this will be enough to propel the country up the European rankings. If Germany is serious about becoming a European leader in mobile experience, its operators will need to continue to aggressively invest in their networks.

Germany's Download Speed Experience scores are on the increase, with all three operators improving their scores by around 3 Mbps since our last report. But despite the across-the-board improvements, one operator remained way ahead of the pack in this metric. Telekom's average Download Speed Experience score of 33.4 Mbps was a clear 12 Mbps ahead of Vodafone's 20.8 Mbps, and nearly double O2's 17.0 Mbps.

But Germany's download speeds don't compare particularly well when ranked alongside their European counterparts. We recently analysed the leading multi-country operators Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Vodafone, measuring the Download and Upload Speed Experience in each European country where they operate. Our analysis showed that Telekom's average Download Speed Experience was worse in Germany than those of T-Mobile Netherlands or Magyar Telekom in Hungary. Vodafone Germany was at the base of Vodafone's table, with slower speeds than Greece, while Telefónica-owned O2 Germany's Download Speed Experience was well behind that of Movistar in Spain.

Germany is a mature mobile market, with comparable levels of competition, numbers of operators, topography, etc. to its European neighbours. So what's the reason for these relatively unremarkable mobile broadband speeds? It would be easy to blame poor performance on underinvestment in network infrastructure, but the reality is a combination of many factors including regulation, availability of spectrum, and mergers and acquisitions such as O2's merger with E-Plus.

The fact remains that Germany is punching well below its weight in terms of mobile network speeds. And there's growing discontent among the business community in the country on the pace of mobile network experience improvements, with claims that poor broadband speeds are hindering economic growth. Germany's network speeds are improving, but the country's operators cannot afford to take their feet off the gas if they wish to improve their showing on the international stage.

Telekom won our Upload Speed Experience award, topping the table with an even greater margin than we saw in Download Speed. Telekom's winning Upload Speed Experience score of 10.9 Mbps was over two-thirds faster than either of its rivals. O2 managed a second place finish in our Upload Speed Experience metric, as its score of 6.4 Mbps narrowly beat Vodafone's 6.1 Mbps.

This pattern was repeated in our 4G Upload Speed supporting metric, with Telekom's score of 12.1 Mbps over 44% faster than its rivals. But all three operators improved their 4G Upload Speed scores by roughly 1 Mbps since our last report on the German mobile market.

Upload speeds are typically slower than download, as current mobile broadband technologies tend to be focused on providing the best possible downstream rates for users consuming content. But upload is becoming increasingly important to the mobile experience as mobile user habits shift away from downloading and consuming to uploading and creating content.

Vodafone won its only national award in our Latency Experience category, where its score of 39.9 milliseconds beat Telekom's 42.4ms and O2's 49.5ms. Latency measures the delay users experience as data makes a round trip through the network, meaning the lower the latency score, the better.

Vodafone also topped both our latency supporting metric tables — but interestingly, its scores in both categories are getting worse, meaning response times are getting longer. In 4G Latency, Vodafone's score of 35.4ms rose by 1.5ms since our last report (compared to Telekom and O2 who both saw incremental improvements). In 3G Latency, Vodafone's score similarly worsened by nearly 3ms to 50.7ms, while Telekom's also increased by 2ms.

While these rising 3G Latency scores may merely be a result of reallocation of network resources to 4G, the increases in 4G Latency scores run counter to the improvements of 4G technology in recent years. They are likely a result of network challenges such as poor network routing, peering issues or a side effect of increased congestion.

Latency is becoming more important as mobile user habits change and unlimited data connections become increasingly ubiquitous. As latency improves, the mobile user experience gets better on a host of real-time applications and services, from web browsing to voice over IP to online multiplayer gaming.

We recently tracked the latency performance of Germany's operators, looking at the trends in their 3G and 4G Latency scores during the last nine months of 2018. We found that while Vodafone was ahead in both metrics, both its rivals are closing the gap. Vodafone has managed to top our latency metrics in Germany — a feat which the operator should be proud of, given Telekom's dominance elsewhere. But Vodafone's lead is slipping, and it needs to ensure it addresses any congestion issues if it hopes to stay ahead of the pack.