Mobile Network Experience Report Sri Lanka July 2020

Sri Lanka

Mobile Network Experience Report
July 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

Mobitel wins on Games Experience, but much more work is needed before Sri Lankans can fully enjoy mobile games over cellular connections

Mobitel has won our inaugural Games Experience award in Sri Lanka, with a score of 39.1 points out of a possible 100 and 0.7 points higher than second-placed Dialog. This is somewhat fitting, given the Mobitel PUBG Mobile Esports Premier League 2020, which took place in February. However, Mobitel, along with all three of its competitors, placed in the Very Poor (under 40) category, indicating that there is considerable room for improvement in this measure of the mobile experience in Sri Lanka. A Very Poor rating means that nearly all users found this level of experience unacceptable and experienced a noticeable delay within the game, with most of them not feeling like they had control of the gameplay.

Airtel ties with Mobitel on Video Experience

Airtel’s joint win with Mobitel for Video Experience is an impressive achievement for the 3G-only operator and is the first instance in which an operator other than Mobitel or Dialog has appeared in our awards table for Sri Lanka. Airtel’s Video Experience score rose by 7.5 points, which is remarkable given that both Dialog and Mobitel’s scores dropped significantly since our last report — by 6.7 and 4.4 points, respectively. This decline has pushed Mobitel into the Fair (40-55) category, putting it in line with Airtel and Dialog, while Hutch continues to have a Poor (under 40) rating for this measure of the mobile experience.

Mobitel’s strong push on 4G Availability propels it to joint first

Mobitel went from lagging 5.6 percentage points behind Dialog in terms of the proportion of time our 4G users on its network were connected to a 4G signal in our last report, to statistically tying with Dialog for first place. While our Dialog users saw their 4G Availability improve by 1.6 percentage points to 77.8%, this improvement was blown away by the 5.9 percentage point increase observed by our Mobitel users. Judging by Mobitel’s impressive progress, it won’t be long before Sri Lanka will have at least one operator with a 4G Availability score of 80% or more.

Mobitel wins the Download Speed Experience award outright

In our previous and first report on Sri Lanka’s mobile network experience, Mobitel was forced to share the top spot for average download speeds with Dialog. This time, however, Mobitel is the sole winner with a score of 9.1 Mbps and our users on its network observed average speeds that were 1.1 Mbps faster than those seen by their counterparts on Dialog. The range of Download Speed Experience scores has narrowed significantly since our last report with 5.3 Mbps separating Mobitel from last-placed Hutch instead of 7.4 Mbps, a drop of 2.1 Mbps.

While Opensignal’s awards remain a two-horse race between Mobitel and Dialog, Mobitel has been gaining ground at Dialog’s expense

This time Mobitel has won three awards outright — Games Experience, Voice App Experience and Download Speed Experience — and drew for another two: with Airtel for Video Experience and with Dialog for 4G Availability. This is a more extensive haul for the operator than last time when it won only two awards and tied with Dialog for another. Dialog’s haul of outright wins has halved since our last report, but it retains the Upload Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience awards.

Introduction

A great deal has changed across the world since our first report and Sri Lanka’s mobile network experience appears to be no exception. While there has been considerable progress in some areas — with Mobitel and Airtel’s impressive gains in 4G Availability and Video Experience, respectively, being the most obvious examples — there were quite a few declines across many of our metrics, with Dialog and Mobitel users seeing the biggest impacts. The fall in scores is likely due to the changes in mobile network usage triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the generous data packages offered by the operators to support their customers during a period in which connectivity has become even more crucial to society, given the need for increased remote working.

Looking at Download Speed Experience, Mobitel’s victory appears to be due to its greater resilience in this regard as the average download speeds observed by our Mobitel users declined by 2 Mbps instead of the 2.7 Mbps seen by their Dialog counterparts. However, Mobitel and Dialog’s Download Speed Experience scores remained above 7.8 Mbps and there was still a considerable gap — albeit a reduced one— between their scores and those of Airtel and Hutch.

Back in February, Mobitel was the only operator in Sri Lanka to have a Good rating for Video Experience and an acceptable rating for Voice App Experience. This time round, it has joined its peers with Fair and Poor ratings, respectively.

In this report we examined the mobile network experience of users across the country on four national operator networks — Mobitel, Dialog, Airtel and Hutch — to see how they fared on real-world measurements over a period of 90 days starting on April 1, 2020

Opensignal Awards Table

Mobile Experience Awards Sri Lanka
July 2020, Sri Lanka 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
July 2020, Sri Lanka
Games Experience
Voice App Experience
Download Speed Experience
Upload Speed Experience
4G Coverage Experience
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
July 2020, Sri Lanka
Video Experience
4G Availability
Download Image

Overview

Click on metric labels below for a quick preview
Video Experience
in 0-100 points
Mobitel
54.4
Dialog
47.8
Airtel
52.6
Hutch
36.9
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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National Analysis

Video Experience

Video Experience
in 0-100 points
Mobitel
54.4
Dialog
47.8
Airtel
52.6
Hutch
36.9
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
59.8 (± 0.97) 52.5 (± 0.73) 52.9 (± 2.45)
3G Video Experience
40.8 (± 1.94) 36.1 (± 1.23) 52.6 (± 1.65) 28.7 (± 1.58)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Video Experience in 0-100 points
60 (± 0.97)
53 (± 0.73)
—
53 (± 2.45)
3G Video Experience in 0-100 points
41 (± 1.94)
36 (± 1.23)
53 (± 1.65)
29 (± 1.58)
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Games Experience

Games Experience
in 0-100 points
Mobitel
39.1
Dialog
38.4
Airtel
37.4
Hutch
37.8
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
45.4 (± 1.37) 41.4 (± 1.09) 39.7 (± 1.77)
3G Games Experience
34.8 (± 0.50) 33.9 (± 0.31) 37.4 (± 0.37) 36.8 (± 0.47)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Games Experience in 0-100 points
45 (± 1.37)
41 (± 1.09)
—
40 (± 1.77)
3G Games Experience in 0-100 points
35 (± 0.50)
34 (± 0.31)
37 (± 0.37)
37 (± 0.47)
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Voice App Experience

Voice App Experience
in 0-100 points
Mobitel
72.2
Dialog
68.8
Airtel
69.9
Hutch
68.6
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
74.8 (± 0.50) 71.4 (± 0.39) 71.6 (± 1.35)
3G Voice App Experience
65.3 (± 1.13) 62.3 (± 0.72) 69.9 (± 0.95) 67.1 (± 1.23)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
75 (± 0.50)
71 (± 0.39)
—
72 (± 1.35)
3G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
65 (± 1.13)
62 (± 0.72)
70 (± 0.95)
67 (± 1.23)
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Download Speed Experience

Download Speed Experience
in Mbps
Mobitel
9.1
Dialog
7.9
Airtel
5.7
Hutch
3.8
02.557.510
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Download Speed
11.2 (± 0.30) 9.9 (± 0.16) 6.7 (± 0.33)
3G Download Speed
3.8 (± 0.13) 3.2 (± 0.07) 5.7 (± 0.18) 2.3 (± 0.07)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Download Speed in Mbps
11 (± 0.30)
10 (± 0.16)
—
7 (± 0.33)
3G Download Speed in Mbps
4 (± 0.13)
3 (± 0.07)
6 (± 0.18)
2 (± 0.07)
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Upload Speed Experience

Upload Speed Experience
in Mbps
Mobitel
3.2
Dialog
4.1
Airtel
0.6
Hutch
1.3
01.252.53.755
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Upload Speed
4.2 (± 0.13) 5.5 (± 0.09) 2.4 (± 0.15)
3G Upload Speed
0.7 (± 0.04) 0.8 (± 0.03) 0.6 (± 0.02) 0.8 (± 0.03)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Upload Speed in Mbps
4 (± 0.13)
6 (± 0.09)
—
2 (± 0.15)
3G Upload Speed in Mbps
1 (± 0.04)
1 (± 0.03)
1 (± 0.02)
1 (± 0.03)
Mobile Network Experience Report | July 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

4G Availability

4G Availability
% of time
Mobitel
76.5
Dialog
77.8
Hutch
59.3
020406080
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image

4G Coverage Experience

4G Coverage Experience
in 0-10 points
Mobitel
6.3
Dialog
8.0
Hutch
2.9
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