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Fierce competition in this report sees users’ mobile Video Experience jump by between 3.8 and 4 points on Opensignal’s one hundred point scale. M1 users just edged into the Excellent category, which starts at 75. But Singtel and M1 share Opensignal’s award because of overlapping confidence intervals which place Singtel’s Video Experience 0.7 shy of Excellent with 74.3 ahead of StarHub’s 73.5 putting both operators into the Very Good category.
While users on all three operators saw improvements in their upload speed, Singtel users’ speeds improved more than the others to take the Upload Speed Experience award previously won by M1. With the rising importance of sharing videos as well as photos and audio, Singaporeans are well served by the increases in upload speeds across the three main operators, where speeds jumped by between 6.7% and an astonishing 20% in just six months.
StarHub and Singtel tied for Download Speed Experience award, as StarHub’s user experience improved even faster than Singtel’s. While the last report’s winners’ Download Speed Experience score rose 5.8Mbps to reach 48.3Mbps, StarHub users’ speeds increased by a staggering 7.8Mbps to tie the award. Opensignal’s users on all three operators saw faster speeds, even without a 5G launch.
Again, M1’s users enjoyed the most responsive mobile network with M1 winning Opensignal’s Latency Experience award. Speedy reactions are especially critical for gamers playing the many multiplayer mobile games but low latencies help a range of mobile apps and services including web browsing.
In Opensignal’s new experiential measure, all three operators share the first Voice App Experience award in Singapore. Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger etc.
The mobile network experience of users on Singapore’s three established leading operators continues to move onwards apace, despite not yet launching 5G. Download and upload speeds increase as does the Video Experience across all three operators.
However, new entrants are increasing the competitive pressure on Singtel, M1 and StarHub. Most notable is TPG, which has offered an unusual extended trial service throughout 2019 as it refines its offering and ensures it meets market expectations. Because TPG does not yet offer a full commercial service we have not yet included the experience of TPG users in our Singapore Mobile Network Experience report.
However, we have analyzed the experience of TPG trial users on two occasions in 2019. Initially, we compared the experience mid-year and found TPG users’ speeds were much slower than Singtel, M1 and StarHub. Secondly, we looked at how the TPG experience had changed as the company moves closer to launch, here we found a mixed story with some metrics worsening — perhaps a result of more network usage — and others like Video Experience remaining fairly stable.
| Mobile Experience Awards Singapore | |||
|---|---|---|---|
December 2019,
Singapore Report
|
S
Singtel
|
M
M1
|
S
StarHub
|
4G Availability
| |||
Video Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
Latency Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
December 2019,
Singapore
|
|---|---|
|
4G Availability
|
S
Singtel
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
S
Singtel
|
|
Latency Experience
|
M
M1
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
December 2019, Singapore
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
S
Singtel
M
M1
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
S
Singtel
M
M1
S
StarHub
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
S
Singtel
S
StarHub
|
In the last six months, M1 and StarHub users’ have broken through the 90% mark for 4G Availability joining Singtel, which was the first Singaporean operator to achieve this last time. Singtel retained its lead to win Opensignal’s 4G Availability award, despite the competition narrowing the gap from 1.8% to just 1.2% this time.
4G Availability is a valuable bellwether for the mobile network experience because of 4G technology’s inherent speed, capacity, and latency advantages over 3G. The more time users spend connected to 4G, the better their overall experience is likely to be.
M1 and Singtel tied for our Video Experience award, with all three operators seeing improvements in users’ experience. Opensignal’s unique Video Experience measures real-world video streams and uses an ITU-based approach for determining perceived video quality. The metric calculation takes picture quality, video loading time and stall rate into account. We report video experience on a scale of 0-100.
Looking at the 4G Video Experience — which Singaporeans will enjoy the vast majority of the time because of strong 4G Availability scores — we see users on all three operators enjoying an Excellent Video Experience, with scores of 78.2, 77.5 and 76.6 for M1, Singtel and StarHub respectively. Yet, for overall Video Experience only users on M1 enjoyed an Excellent experience.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
S
Singtel
|
M
M1
|
S
StarHub
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Video Experience
| 77.5 (± 0.52) | 78.2 (± 0.69) | 76.6 (± 0.54) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 56.3 (± 2.29) | 52.4 (± 3.73) | 56.9 (± 3.90) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
S
Singtel
|
78 (± 0.52) |
|
M
M1
|
78 (± 0.69) |
|
S
StarHub
|
77 (± 0.54) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
S
Singtel
|
56 (± 2.29) |
|
M
M1
|
52 (± 3.73) |
|
S
StarHub
|
57 (± 3.90) |
Opensignal’s new Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger etc. Singapore’s operators all offer users a Good experience meaning many users are satisfied, and jointly win the award for the first time.
The measure uses a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality. Voice App Experience for each operator is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
S
Singtel
|
M
M1
|
S
StarHub
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 82.1 (± 0.44) | 81.9 (± 0.60) | 81.7 (± 0.50) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 79.0 (± 1.38) | 77.3 (± 2.29) | 76.8 (± 2.36) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
S
Singtel
|
82 (± 0.44) |
|
M
M1
|
82 (± 0.60) |
|
S
StarHub
|
82 (± 0.50) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
S
Singtel
|
79 (± 1.38) |
|
M
M1
|
77 (± 2.29) |
|
S
StarHub
|
77 (± 2.36) |
It has been a tight fought competition between Singtel and StarHub for the Download Speed title over the last eighteen months. A year ago, StarHub won the award for Download Speed Experience, but six months ago Singtel stole the crown. This time StarHub fights back and jointly wins the award with Singtel.
With speeds experienced of 48.3 Mbps for Singtel and 47.3 Mbps for StarHub, there is a clear margin ahead of third placed M1’s 37.9 Mbps experienced by our users. This gap has increased in the last six months from 3.4 Mbps between StarHub and the next fastest to 9.4 Mbps this time indicating that while the speed enjoyed by M1’s users remains good and is improving, it is beginning to lose touch with the market leading Download Speed Experience.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
S
Singtel
|
M
M1
|
S
StarHub
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Download Speed
| 55.7 (± 1.01) | 42.4 (± 1.02) | 53.8 (± 1.03) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 6.3 (± 0.18) | 6.1 (± 0.34) | 12.5 (± 0.60) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
S
Singtel
|
56 (± 1.01) |
|
M
M1
|
42 (± 1.02) |
|
S
StarHub
|
54 (± 1.03) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
S
Singtel
|
6 (± 0.18) |
|
M
M1
|
6 (± 0.34) |
|
S
StarHub
|
13 (± 0.60) |
Upload speeds are super important for social media usage or just sending a few photos of a video to friends. Here, as in download, M1 users saw a smaller improvement in speeds than users on Singtel and StarHub. While M1 users enjoyed an upload speed increase of 0.9 Mbps since the last report, our users on StarHub saw speeds rise by 1.3Mbps and on Singtel by 2.6Mbps to take Opensignal’s Upload Speed Experience award.
Intriguingly, Singtel users experienced the slowest 3G Upload Speeds, despite winning the overall Upload award, indicating the importance of 4G. Third placed overall operator StarHub, saw its users experience the fastest 3G Upload Speed for the second report in a row.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
S
Singtel
|
M
M1
|
S
StarHub
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 17.7 (± 0.27) | 16.0 (± 0.40) | 15.9 (± 0.32) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.7 (± 0.09) | 1.9 (± 0.14) | 2.0 (± 0.11) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
S
Singtel
|
18 (± 0.27) |
|
M
M1
|
16 (± 0.40) |
|
S
StarHub
|
16 (± 0.32) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
S
Singtel
|
2 (± 0.09) |
|
M
M1
|
2 (± 0.14) |
|
S
StarHub
|
2 (± 0.11) |
The responsiveness of a network — or latency — is a critical measure that increases the feeling of speed in many online services. A network with moderate speed, but excellent latency, may offer its users a faster feeling web browsing experience than a rival with faster download speeds! For gamers in particular, latency or “ping time” is a measure which is often displayed in-game because it can make the difference not only between an enjoyable or frustrating online gaming experience but between winning and losing.
M1 wins Opensignal’s Latency Experience award, with a latency of just 26.6ms, meaning M1 users see the most responsive mobile network experience, ahead of second placed Singtel. Again, StarHub users have the slowest latency, but it has improved and for the first time joins its competitors with a latency of below the 30ms mark. With 5G technologies aiming to deliver even more responsive networks in the years ahead, Singapore’s operators ongoing latency improvements are creating an excellent foundation on which to build when 5G launches here.
|
Latency Experience
Additional Metrics |
S
Singtel
|
M
M1
|
S
StarHub
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in ms | |||
|
4G Latency
| 26.5 (± 0.11) | 24.3 (± 0.22) | 26.3 (± 0.23) |
|
3G Latency
| 33.0 (± 0.56) | 43.4 (± 1.83) | 44.8 (± 1.50) |
| 4G Latency | in ms |
|
S
Singtel
|
26 (± 0.11) |
|
M
M1
|
24 (± 0.22) |
|
S
StarHub
|
26 (± 0.23) |
| 3G Latency | in ms |
|
S
Singtel
|
33 (± 0.56) |
|
M
M1
|
43 (± 1.83) |
|
S
StarHub
|
45 (± 1.50) |
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
Opensignal is the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe. We are the independent authority for understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
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