Germany

After seeing some impressive increases in Telekom's 4G Availability in our last report, our users on its network have now seen this growth stagnate. Telekom kept hold of our award, but its score remains statistically unchanged from six months ago. Meanwhile, its rivals are closing the gap. Vodafone's users saw their 4G Availability rise by more than 2 percentage points to come within 5 points of the leader, while third-placed O2 saw the biggest improvement of 5 points. But nonetheless, the Telefónica operator remains 9 points adrift of its closest rival.

Overall, 4G Availability in Germany is improving. But in our recent global State of Mobile Network Experience report, the country appeared in the bottom half of the table with a national average score of 76.9% — among the lowest in Europe, and behind many much less-developed mobile markets including Lebanon, Vietnam and Senegal. Also, another recent analysis found there is still a significant gap between the urban and rural 4G Availability experience, with our users in some parts of rural Germany still experiencing less than 50% 4G Availability. Germany's operators still have some work to do to improve both their global ranking and the 4G Availability of their rural users.

Telekom kept hold of our Video Experience award, with an increase in its score of over 2 points (out of 100) — the largest growth we saw among Germany's operators in the past six months. Second-placed Vodafone drifted a little further behind the leader, as our users on its network saw statistically no change in its score, while our O2 users saw a small improvement of nearly 1.4 points.

These small increases in our users' Video Experience scores have not changed our operator ratings in this metric. Both Telekom and Vodafone's scores remain in our Very Good (65-75) ranking, meaning pretty consistent fast loading times and only occasional stalling across all resolutions. O2, meanwhile, stays in our Good (55-65) bracket, meaning its users are likely to experience slower loading and more stalling, especially at higher resolutions.

In this report, we will take our first look at Voice App Experience in Germany. This unique, first-of-its-kind metric measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union for quantifying overall voice call quality with a series of calibrated technical parameters.

Telekom added to its award haul with a win in Voice App Experience — but it was a very tight race, with just 1.1 points (out of 100) separating all three of Germany's national operators. However, Telekom's slight lead tipped it over into our Good rating (80-87), meaning our users are generally satisfied when using voice apps, although they may occasionally experience minor quality impairments such as clicking sounds, distortion or low volume. Our users on Vodafone and O2, meanwhile, got an Acceptable rating (74-80), meaning they can expect more frequent and intrusive call quality impairments than their peers on Telekom's network.

Telekom is still well ahead of its rivals in our speed metrics. But in Download Speed Experience, our users on its network have seen the operator take its foot off the gas, as we've seen statistically no increase in their score since our last report. O2 and Vodafone both increased their scores by over 1 Mbps to close the gap on the leader — but nonetheless, our Telekom users' Download Speed Experience is still over 11 Mbps faster than its closest rival.

In Upload Speed Experience, our Telekom users also saw their scores remain stagnant in the past six months — but the operator wasn't the only one to see no change in the speeds our users experience. Vodafone's users also saw static scores, while O2 was the only operator to see a 4% increase in its Upload Speed Experience score. Despite the lack of movement, Telekom remains well ahead of its rivals with a lead of nearly 4.5 Mbps, while third-placed Vodafone's static score has seen it drift a bit further behind the pack.

Interestingly, despite the increase in O2's overall Upload Speed Experience score, the operator's 4G-only Upload Speed has actually dropped slightly by around 3% since our last report. This small drop is not an immediate cause for concern because increases in O2 users' 3G Upload Speed and 4G Availability have meant this small drop has not pulled down the operator's overall Upload Speed Experience. But the overall pattern of stagnating speeds is something Germany's operators need to focus on if they wish to improve users’ mobile network experience.

Vodafone kept hold of our Latency Experience award — its only win of our national award metrics, but enough to deny Telekom a clean sweep. But the winner saw the least improvement in the latency our users experienced of all three of Germany's operators. Our Vodafone users saw their Latency Experience improve by less than 0.6 milliseconds (ms), while Telekom's was nearly 1.8ms faster. But it was our users on third-placed O2 that saw the biggest improvement of nearly 5ms, to come within 4ms of its closest rival.