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None of New Zealand’s three nationwide operators was able to win more than two of our awards (out of a possible seven). The operator that has come closest to dominating our awards table is Spark, by virtue of its two wins for Download Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience as well as three draws for Video Experience, Games Experience and Voice App Experience.
Spark’s customers saw average download speeds of 40.4 Mbps, an impressive 6.5 Mbps above those seen on second-placed Vodafone. However, 2degrees beat both Spark and Vodafone on Upload Speed Experience, with its users observing an average speed of 9.9 Mbps, 0.9 Mbps higher than that seen by Spark’s users.
While Spark and 2degrees’ 4G customers have reported 4G Availability scores above 85%, those on Vodafone’s network were on 4G connections just 72% of the time, 15.9 and 13.1 percentage points behind their 2degrees and Spark counterparts, respectively. However, Vodafone scored better on 4G Coverage Experience, which analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators. Vodafone came second with a score of 8.4, while Spark led with a score of 9.1 and 2degrees trailed with 7.9.
New Zealand has historically performed well at the international level in our experiential metrics and this story is repeated here at the operator level. The experience observed by our New Zealand users is remarkably consistent, with no operator able to win any of the awards for these metrics outright and with all three operators placing in the same categories for Games Experience (Fair) and Voice App Experience (Good).
There was more variation in the Video Experience observed by New Zealanders than that observed for Games Experience and Voice App Experience, with Vodafone users narrowly missing out (by 0.2 of a point) on a Very Good experience, while Spark and 2degrees were both less than a couple of points shy of reaching the Excellent category.
Our inaugural look at New Zealand’s mobile network experience reveals a fiercely competitive landscape. No operator was able to win one of our three experiential metrics outright and no operator was able to win more than two awards out of a possible seven. The operator that has come closest to dominating our awards table is Spark, by virtue of its two wins for Download Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience as well as three draws for Video Experience, Games Experience and Voice App Experience.
While the awards table was somewhat mixed, our users observed some stark differences in terms of download speeds — those on Spark saw a Download Speed Experience score of 40.4 Mbps, an impressive 6.5 Mbps above that seen on second-placed Vodafone. However, 2degrees beat both Spark and Vodafone on Upload Speed Experience, with its users observing an average speed of 9.9 Mbps, 0.9 Mbps higher than that seen by users on second-placed Spark.
At the international level, New Zealand has been performing strongly in terms of our experiential metrics — Video Experience, Games Experience and Voice App Experience. The country ranked 26th (Very Good), 27th (Good) and 14th (Good)for these, respectively, in our global reports on these measures of the mobile experience. Now that we’re looking at the operator level, it’s clear that New Zealanders’ Voice App Experience has been remarkably consistent in that all three operators provided them with a Good experience. This means that many users were satisfied, although some have experienced minor quality impairments such as clicking sounds or distortion.
Given that Vodafone has launched 5G and the ongoing work by all three operators’ joint venture, the Rural Connectivity Group (RCG), to bring connectivity to rural areas, it will be interesting to see how New Zealand’s mobile experience will evolve over the coming months, though it is likely that the speed of change will be hampered to some extent by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, judging by 2degrees’ announcement of its reduction in capital spend and deferral of non-essential projects, along with Vodafone’s decision to suspend work on its 5G roll-out and the news that the spectrum auction that Spark was relying on for its rollout of 5G mobile services has been put on hold indefinitely (the operator has already launched 5G fixed wireless access services).
In this report, we’ve analyzed the mobile network experience provided by New Zealand’s three national operators — Vodafone, Spark and 2degrees — at the national level in the 90 days starting January, 1, 2020.
| Mobile Experience Awards New Zealand | |||
|---|---|---|---|
April 2020,
New Zealand Report
|
V
Vodafone
|
S
Spark
|
2
2degrees
|
Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
April 2020,
New Zealand
|
|---|---|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
S
Spark
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
2
2degrees
|
|
4G Availability
|
2
2degrees
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
S
Spark
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
April 2020, New Zealand
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
S
Spark
2
2degrees
|
|
Games Experience
|
V
Vodafone
S
Spark
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
V
Vodafone
S
Spark
|
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
V
Vodafone
|
S
Spark
|
2
2degrees
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Video Experience
| 68.1 (± 1.19) | 79.0 (± 0.61) | 79.5 (± 0.67) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 57.9 (± 2.07) | 44.3 (± 3.43) | 45.4 (± 4.74) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
V
Vodafone
|
68 (± 1.19) |
|
S
Spark
|
79 (± 0.61) |
|
2
2degrees
|
79 (± 0.67) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
V
Vodafone
|
58 (± 2.07) |
|
S
Spark
|
44 (± 3.43) |
|
2
2degrees
|
45 (± 4.74) |
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
V
Vodafone
|
S
Spark
|
2
2degrees
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Games Experience
| 85.0 (± 0.03) | 84.3 (± 1.10) | 85.0 (± 0.72) |
|
3G Games Experience
| 50.2 (± 2.99) | 40.0 (± 3.96) | 36.9 (± 0.93) |
| 4G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
V
Vodafone
|
85 (± 0.03) |
|
S
Spark
|
84 (± 1.10) |
|
2
2degrees
|
85 (± 0.72) |
| 3G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
V
Vodafone
|
50 (± 2.99) |
|
S
Spark
|
40 (± 3.96) |
|
2
2degrees
|
37 (± 0.93) |
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
V
Vodafone
|
S
Spark
|
2
2degrees
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 83.5 (± 0.39) | 83.6 (± 0.35) | 83.2 (± 0.47) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 75.9 (± 0.96) | 73.4 (± 1.38) | 68.1 (± 2.09) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
V
Vodafone
|
84 (± 0.39) |
|
S
Spark
|
84 (± 0.35) |
|
2
2degrees
|
83 (± 0.47) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
V
Vodafone
|
76 (± 0.96) |
|
S
Spark
|
73 (± 1.38) |
|
2
2degrees
|
68 (± 2.09) |
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
V
Vodafone
|
S
Spark
|
2
2degrees
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Download Speed
| 45.4 (± 1.32) | 47.1 (± 1.33) | 34.9 (± 0.97) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 8.9 (± 0.35) | 6.7 (± 0.44) | 4.8 (± 0.39) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
V
Vodafone
|
45 (± 1.32) |
|
S
Spark
|
47 (± 1.33) |
|
2
2degrees
|
35 (± 0.97) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
V
Vodafone
|
9 (± 0.35) |
|
S
Spark
|
7 (± 0.44) |
|
2
2degrees
|
5 (± 0.39) |
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
V
Vodafone
|
S
Spark
|
2
2degrees
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 11.0 (± 0.35) | 10.5 (± 0.28) | 11.6 (± 0.37) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.3 (± 0.07) | 1.5 (± 0.19) | 1.4 (± 0.21) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
V
Vodafone
|
11 (± 0.35) |
|
S
Spark
|
11 (± 0.28) |
|
2
2degrees
|
12 (± 0.37) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
V
Vodafone
|
1 (± 0.07) |
|
S
Spark
|
2 (± 0.19) |
|
2
2degrees
|
1 (± 0.21) |
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.
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