Mobile Network Experience Report Russia May 2020

Russia

Mobile Network Experience Report
May 2020

Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumer mobile experience. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.

Author
Sam Fenwick Senior Analyst

Key Findings

MegaFon leads on download speeds by an impressive margin

Our MegaFon users observed an average download speed of 19.7 Mbps, a remarkable 6.5 Mbps faster than the speeds seen by their MTS and Beeline counterparts and 7.8 Mbps faster than the average speeds enjoyed by users on Tele2’s network. However, while MegaFon also took home the prize for Upload Speed Experience with a score of 7.1 Mbps, its lead was far more modest with only 0.1 Mbps separating it from second-placed Beeline.

Opensignal users observed 4G Availability above 80% on three out of four operators

Of Russia’s four national operators, our 4G users only spent less than 80% of their time connected to a 4G signal on Beeline but the operator just missed the mark — falling short by half a percentage point. While no operator has achieved the 90% plus scores that we see in some other countries,Tele2 came closest in this regard, with our 4G users on its network reporting a 4G Availability score of 85.2%.

MegaFon and Tele2 take the lion’s share of awards

Both MegaFon and Tele2 have won three of our seven awards, with MTS winning the remaining award (4G Coverage Experience). MegaFon took home the Video Experience award, along with those for Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience, while Tele2 claimed the awards for Games Experience, Voice App Experience and 4G Availability.

The Russian Video Experience varies between Very Good and Good

Our users on two operators, MegaFon and Tele2, had a Very Good experience when streaming video over cellular connections. Their counterparts on MTS and Beeline narrowly missed out on doing so, with scores just 0.4 and 1.5 short of the 65 out of 100 points required to join their peers in the Very Good category. They therefore placed in the Good category. A Very Good Video Experience indicates generally fast loading times and only occasional stalling, while a Good rating means that users’ experiences were less consistent, even from the same video streaming provider and particularly for higher resolutions, with noticeably slower loading times and stalling not being uncommon.

Tele2 users have the best mobile gaming experience

Tele2 won our Games Experience award, which assesses the extent to which mobile gamers’ experience is affected by factors such as latency, jitter and packet loss, by a healthy margin. It beat second-placed Beeline by 3.9 points. However, it is clear that there is much room for improvement in this measure of the mobile experience across all four operators. Tele2 along with MegaFon and Beeline placed in the Poor category, while MTS narrowly missed out on doing so instead placing in the Very Poor category. The Poor category indicates that most users found this level of experience unacceptable, while a Very Poor rating means that nearly all users did so.

Introduction

In our inaugural country-level report on Russia’s mobile experience we’ve found that when it comes to the performance observed by our users, it’s principally a tale of two national operators: MegaFon and Tele2, as they have won the lion’s share of our awards. The only award to escape their reach was the 4G Coverage Experience award, which was snapped up by MTS. This measures on a scale of 0-10 the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.

MegaFon’s lead was seemingly unassailable on Download Speed Experience, with its users observing an impressive 19.7 Mbps, a whopping 6.5 Mbps faster than the speeds seen by their MTS and Beeline counterparts and 7.8 Mbps faster than the average speeds enjoyed by users on Tele2’s network. That said, MegaFon’s margin of victory was far smaller for the Upload Speed Experience and Video Experience awards.

Tele2 on the other hand was the only operator on which our 4G users spent more than 85% of their time connected to a 4G signal, which allowed it to walk away with the 4G Availability award. It also snapped up the Games Experience and Voice App Experience awards.

Encouragingly, none of Russia’s four national operators is trailing behind the rest of the pack across the majority of our metrics, indicating that there’s healthy competition in terms of the user experience. That said, our results show that there is much work that still needs to be done before Russia’s mobile gamers can play over cellular networks without experiencing gameplay issues.

In this report, we've analyzed our data gathered in the 90 days from the start of February 2020 to see how Russia’s four national operators — MegaFon, Tele2, Beeline and MTS — measure up.

Opensignal Awards Table

Mobile Experience Awards Russia
May 2020, Russia Report
Video Experience
Games Experience
Voice App Experience
Download Speed Experience
Upload Speed Experience
4G Availability
4G Coverage Experience
Download Image
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
May 2020, Russia
Video Experience
Games Experience
Voice App Experience
Download Speed Experience
Upload Speed Experience
4G Availability
4G Coverage Experience
Download Image

Overview

Click on metric labels below for a quick preview
Video Experience
in 0-100 points
MegaFon
67.7
Tele2
65.6
Beeline
63.5
MTS
64.6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image

National Analysis

Video Experience

Video Experience
in 0-100 points
MegaFon
67.7
Tele2
65.6
Beeline
63.5
MTS
64.6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Video Experience
Additional Metrics
in 0-100 points
4G Video Experience
72.0 (± 0.20) 68.0 (± 0.22) 67.3 (± 0.27) 66.6 (± 0.20)
3G Video Experience
52.9 (± 0.55) 56.5 (± 0.60) 51.8 (± 0.62) 56.6 (± 0.48)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Video Experience in 0-100 points
72 (± 0.20)
68 (± 0.22)
67 (± 0.27)
67 (± 0.20)
3G Video Experience in 0-100 points
53 (± 0.55)
56 (± 0.60)
52 (± 0.62)
57 (± 0.48)
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Games Experience

Games Experience
in 0-100 points
MegaFon
51.2
Tele2
56.9
Beeline
52.9
MTS
39.6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Games Experience
Additional Metrics
in 0-100 points
4G Games Experience
59.4 (± 0.32) 61.3 (± 0.27) 62.2 (± 0.30) 42.2 (± 0.27)
3G Games Experience
37.5 (± 0.12) 40.0 (± 0.57) 37.6 (± 0.14) 36.7 (± 0.11)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Games Experience in 0-100 points
59 (± 0.32)
61 (± 0.27)
62 (± 0.30)
42 (± 0.27)
3G Games Experience in 0-100 points
37 (± 0.12)
40 (± 0.57)
38 (± 0.14)
37 (± 0.11)
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Voice App Experience

Voice App Experience
in 0-100 points
MegaFon
76.5
Tele2
78.4
Beeline
76.8
MTS
73.6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics
in 0-100 points
4G Voice App Experience
78.4 (± 0.12) 79.3 (± 0.11) 78.9 (± 0.13) 74.8 (± 0.10)
3G Voice App Experience
69.8 (± 0.30) 74.7 (± 0.28) 70.5 (± 0.32) 68.7 (± 0.25)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
78 (± 0.12)
79 (± 0.11)
79 (± 0.13)
75 (± 0.10)
3G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
70 (± 0.30)
75 (± 0.28)
70 (± 0.32)
69 (± 0.25)
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Download Speed Experience

Download Speed Experience
in Mbps
MegaFon
19.7
Tele2
11.9
Beeline
13.1
MTS
13.2
05101520
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Download Speed
23.7 (± 0.16) 13.2 (± 0.09) 15.3 (± 0.10) 14.7 (± 0.09)
3G Download Speed
5.8 (± 0.06) 6.9 (± 0.07) 6.6 (± 0.07) 7.2 (± 0.06)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Download Speed in Mbps
24 (± 0.16)
13 (± 0.09)
15 (± 0.10)
15 (± 0.09)
3G Download Speed in Mbps
6 (± 0.06)
7 (± 0.07)
7 (± 0.07)
7 (± 0.06)
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Upload Speed Experience

Upload Speed Experience
in Mbps
MegaFon
7.1
Tele2
5.8
Beeline
6.9
MTS
6.1
01.8753.755.6257.5
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Upload Speed
8.8 (± 0.07) 7.0 (± 0.05) 8.7 (± 0.07) 7.3 (± 0.05)
3G Upload Speed
1.1 (± 0.02) 1.6 (± 0.02) 1.4 (± 0.02) 1.5 (± 0.02)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Upload Speed in Mbps
9 (± 0.07)
7 (± 0.05)
9 (± 0.07)
7 (± 0.05)
3G Upload Speed in Mbps
1 (± 0.02)
2 (± 0.02)
1 (± 0.02)
1 (± 0.02)
Mobile Network Experience Report | May 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

4G Availability

4G Availability
% of time
MegaFon
80.9
Tele2
85.2
Beeline
79.5
MTS
80.7
022.54567.590
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image

4G Coverage Experience

4G Coverage Experience
in 0-10 points
MegaFon
5.5
Tele2
5.0
Beeline
5.1
MTS
6.1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Learn more

Opensignal measures the real-world experience of consumers on mobile networks in the places they live, work and travel.

We continually adapt our methodology to best represent the true experience of smartphone users. Therefore, comparisons of the results to past reports should be considered indicative only.

For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple winners.

In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars. In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.

More about Methodology

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For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple operator winners.

In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars.

In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.

Why confidence intervals are vital in analyzing mobile network experience