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We saw a tie for our 4G Availability award for the second report running, with very little light between Globe and Smart's scores. And these scores are improving, with our users on both operators' networks seeing their 4G Availability improve by at least 3 percentage points.
Smart remains well ahead in our overall Download Speed Experience metric, although Globe saw a good increase to close the gap on the leader. However Smart saw a drop of nearly 1 megabit in its 4G Download Speed — something of a concern as 4G Availability is increasing.
Smart kept hold of our Video Experience award fairly comfortably, improving its score by over 3 points (out of 100) to move further ahead of Globe. Smart's score also gained it a Fair rating, meaning Video Experience is acceptable at lower resolutions, while Globe remains well into the Poor rankings, so its users will find streamed video virtually unwatchable.
Smart kept our Latency Experience award, with both operators showing impressive improvements in this metric. Smart's score improved by over 7 milliseconds, but Globe's bettered by over 10ms to put pressure on the leader, with less than 3ms now separating the two.
In our latest look at the Philippines mobile network experience, it's pretty clear that Smart remains the operator to beat. The PLDT-owned operator won four of our national awards outright and drew for 4G Availability — the same awards table as we saw in our last report. But this does not mean Globe has been dormant: We've seen some impressive improvements in its Download Speed and Latency Experience scores to put the pressure on the leader, while Globe won quite a few awards in the Philippines' provinces.
And we've seen a few milestones beaten in this report. Globe has become the first Filipino operator to pass 75% Availability at a national level, with Smart coming tantalizingly close. Meanwhile in Metro Manila, both operators topped 86% 4G Availability — a pretty impressive score, even by the standards of much more developed mobile cities. And it was also in the Metro Manila province where Smart's Latency Experience score passed the 50 milliseconds mark.
Even with just two operators, mobile network experience is continuing to improve in the Philippines, even if some people may think Smart could have benefitted from a lack of competition for our awards. But competition is set to increase, as the existing Philippines’ operators are set to be joined by a third national player — Mislatel's DITO — expected to launch sometime in 2020, while the regulator seems keen to encourage further competition in the market. Neither Globe or Smart have been complacent in recent years, and we're still seeing some decent growth from both operators in many of our metrics.
In this report, we've analyzed the mobile network experience of the Philippines' two national operators in the 90 days from the start of May 2019, both at a national level and across 19 provinces, to see how Globe and Smart measure up.
| Mobile Experience Awards Philippines | ||
|---|---|---|
September 2019,
Philippines Report
|
G
Globe
|
S
Smart
|
4G Availability
| ||
Video Experience
| ||
Download Speed Experience
| ||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||
Latency Experience
| ||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
September 2019,
Philippines
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
S
Smart
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
S
Smart
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
S
Smart
|
|
Latency Experience
|
S
Smart
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
September 2019, Philippines
|
|---|---|
|
4G Availability
|
G
Globe
S
Smart
|
Smart is clearly the operator to beat in the Philippines. But it's not dominant in all metrics, as the ongoing battle for our 4G Availability award shows. We've seen a tie in this metric for the second report running, after Smart put in a sprint to catch Globe in our last report. The two operators remain neck-and-neck, with both seeing their scores improve by at least 3 percentage points in the past six months.
Globe has now passed the 75% mark in 4G Availability, while Smart is inches short of this milestone. This growth is very welcome, as our users in the Philippines saw a national overall score of 72.4% in our recent global State of Mobile Network Experience report — putting the country in the bottom third of our table, and well behind its Southeast Asian neighbors. The competition in this metric is heating up nicely as both Globe and Smart appear to be focusing their efforts on improving their 4G Availability, to the benefit of the whole Filipino mobile network experience.
Smart has comfortably held onto our Video Experience award, but both operators have seen a fair improvement in their scores. Our users on Globe's network saw their Video Experience improve by 2 points (on our scale of 0-100), but Smart's score increased by over 3 points, moving it a little further ahead of its rival.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Globe
|
S
Smart
|
|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||
|
4G Video Experience
| 35.6 (± 0.50) | 57.7 (± 0.53) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 19.9 (± 0.79) | 28.3 (± 1.30) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Globe
|
36 (± 0.50) |
|
S
Smart
|
58 (± 0.53) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Globe
|
20 (± 0.79) |
|
S
Smart
|
28 (± 1.30) |
Smart's Video Experience score of 47.6 out of 100 places it comfortably in our Fair ranking bracket (40-55), which means its users may be able to watch videos with reasonable load times and minimal stalling at low resolutions, but at higher resolutions they will be difficult to watch. Globe's score of 30.4, however, is well into Poor ranking (0-40) territory, meaning its users will struggle to get anything close to an acceptable Video Experience, even at the lowest resolutions.
The contrast in Video Experience is even starker when we look at our 4G-only Video Experience scores. Smart's 4G score of 57.7 was over 10 points ahead of its overall Video Experience tally, tipping the operator over into a Good rating (55-65), meaning faster loading and less stuttering, even at higher resolutions. Globe's 4G Video Experience score was only 5 points ahead of its overall score, and still well within our Poor rating. And these differences were also starkly apparent in our recent deep dive into the Video Experience in the Philippines. The operators should be applauded for increasing their 4G Availability, but our users on Globe's network in particular will not enjoy the full benefits of a 4G connection if it's impossible to stream even the lowest resolution video.
Smart has kept hold of our Download Speed Experience award — but its rival is doing great work on closing the gap. Our users on Smart's network saw their speeds increase by 0.4 Mbps to reach 9.4 Mbps, but Globe's score jumped by a whole megabit to reach 6.5 Mbps. The overall picture shows that download speeds are improving in the Philippines — but there is one concerning result for Smart.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Globe
|
S
Smart
|
|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||
|
4G Download Speed
| 8.3 (± 0.10) | 12.7 (± 0.18) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 2.9 (± 0.05) | 3.1 (± 0.07) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Globe
|
8 (± 0.10) |
|
S
Smart
|
13 (± 0.18) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Globe
|
3 (± 0.05) |
|
S
Smart
|
3 (± 0.07) |
In our download supporting metrics, both operators saw a fair gain of around half a megabit in their 3G Download Speed scores. But while Globe's 4G Download Speed score rose by about the same amount, our users on Smart's network actually saw their 4G speed drop. The fall in Smart's speed was less than a megabit, dropping to 12.7 Mbps from 13.6 Mbps six months ago, but it's still something of a concern to see this score going in the wrong direction, especially as Smart's 4G Availability is growing. Smart is still well ahead in our overall download metrics because of the influence of rising 4G Availability, but needs to address this decline if it wants to stay there.
Smart won our Upload Speed Experience award with a score of 3.3 Mbps — nearly double that of Globe. And this trend continued in both our supporting metrics, with Smart's 4G Upload Speed score of 4.6 Mbps being exactly double that of its rival, while its 3G Download Speed was more than twice that of Globe's.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Globe
|
S
Smart
|
|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 2.3 (± 0.03) | 4.6 (± 0.07) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 0.3 (± 0.01) | 0.7 (± 0.02) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Globe
|
2 (± 0.03) |
|
S
Smart
|
5 (± 0.07) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Globe
|
0 (± 0.01) |
|
S
Smart
|
1 (± 0.02) |
Despite winning by such a clear margin, even Smart's upload scores are well short of the over-10 Mbps speeds we are now regularly seeing in mature markets. The Philippines operators are clearly making some good progress in other areas, but as consumer habits change from passive website viewing to more sharing of photos and videos, they cannot afford to ignore their users' upstream speeds.
Smart has won our Latency Experience award, but the gap between the Philippines' two operators is much narrower than in our speed metrics. Globe is now within 3 milliseconds of the leader, after improving its score by over 10ms since our last report. But Smart hasn't been slacking, as its own Latency Experience has improved by 7ms in the past six months.
|
Latency Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Globe
|
S
Smart
|
|---|---|---|
| in ms | ||
|
4G Latency
| 51.1 (± 0.32) | 50.6 (± 0.43) |
|
3G Latency
| 90.8 (± 1.32) | 83.5 (± 1.24) |
| 4G Latency | in ms |
|
G
Globe
|
51 (± 0.32) |
|
S
Smart
|
51 (± 0.43) |
| 3G Latency | in ms |
|
G
Globe
|
91 (± 1.32) |
|
S
Smart
|
84 (± 1.24) |
The tight contest was even more apparent in our 4G Latency scores, where Globe improved by over 7ms to force a statistical tie with Smart, with both operators scoring just over the 50ms mark. Latency is becoming increasingly important to many aspects of the mobile user experience, from instant messaging and calls to video streaming and online gaming. As the Filipino operators improve their users' latency, we should see the effects filtering into our video and voice metrics in our next report.
The close-run race in national 4G Availability was mirrored in the Philippines provinces. Of the 19 regions we analyzed, we saw Globe win in seven, while Smart won six and a further six were tied. And we saw some impressive scores in some of the more urban provinces — both operators scored over 80% 4G Availability in Bulacan and Cebu, while in Metro Manila they both topped 86%.
In our Video Experience metric, Smart was also dominant, winning in every province except for one draw in Benguet. But our regional Latency Experience awards were much more evenly scattered. We saw no fewer than 12 draws in this metric, with Globe winning in five provinces and Smart topping just two.
Smart was much more dominant in our regional speed metrics — but not everything went the way of the national winner in Download Speed Experience. The operator won in 12 provinces, but was held to a draw in five while Globe managed two rare wins in Benguet and Laguna. Smart excelled in Upload Speed Experience though, sweeping the board in every province except Aklan, where it was forced to a tie with Globe.
There were some pretty wide variations in Download Speed Experience, ranging from Smart's score of over 15 Mbps in Metro Manila to its average speed of less than 3 Mbps in Benguet. These wide regional differences were borne out in our recent analysis of speeds in the Philippines largest cities. And even within the fastest provinces, we found download speeds could be twice as fast in some cities at the most congested times of the day.
Select any region or city below to display individual breakdown
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