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Our users in the Netherlands observed a four-way statistical tie between KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile and Vodafone for Games Experience, with scores in the 83.9–85.0 range. However, Vodafone was the only operator to place in the Excellent (85 or above) category for Games Experience, with the remainder narrowly missing on the same accolade and ending up in the Good (75-85) category for this measure of the mobile experience.
In our last report, our Tele2 users observed the lowest average download speeds — some 10.4 Mbps slower than those seen by their Vodafone counterparts. However, this time around, KPN, Vodafone and Tele2 are statistically tied for second place. This is largely due to an impressive 9.6 Mbps (22.8%) increase in Tele2’s Download Speed Experience score. Tele2 also made impressive gains in Upload Speed Experience, moving up from last place in our previous report with a score of 10.9 Mbps to third place with 13.6 Mbps — a gain of 2.7 Mbps (25.2%). As a consequence of this and a drop of 1 Mbps in the average upload speeds seen by our Vodafone users, Vodafone has been pushed back to last place for this measure of the mobile experience. The other operator to have seen impressive gains on speed since our last report was KPN — our users on its network have seen their average download speeds rise by 4 Mbps (7.9%) since our last report.
Since our first Mobile Network Experience report on the Netherlands in September 2017, T-Mobile has been the only operator to claim more than one of our awards outright and this report has proven to be no exception in this regard. The operator kept hold of the Video Experience, Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience awards, while also tying on Games Experience, Voice App Experience and 4G Availability. The only other operator to win an award outright was KPN, which won the 4G Coverage Experience award for the second time in a row.
Back in March, Tele2 won Opensignal’s 4G Availability outright. This time round, things are distinctly less clear-cut, with T-Mobile and Vodafone statistically tying with it for first place. In addition, our Tele2 and KPN 4G users spent slightly less time connected to 4G and as a consequence the number of operators on which our users observed 4G Availability scores of 95% or higher has dropped from four to three since our last report.
This is the first time that Opensignal has assessed how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming at the operator-level in the Netherlands. Our users observed a four-way tie between KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile and Vodafone, but unlike their counterparts on other networks, our Vodafone users observed an Excellent (85 or above) Games Experience, which means that the vast majority deemed their network experience when playing multiplayer games over a cellular connection to be acceptable. There was not a noticeable delay in almost all cases.
All of the other operators placed in the Good (75-85) category. This means that most of our users on their networks deemed their experience to be acceptable. Their gameplay experience was generally controllable and they received immediate feedback between their actions and the outcomes in the game. Most users did not experience a delay between their actions and the game.
Measured on a scale of 0-100, Opensignal’s Games Experience metric quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination). Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.
In another first, this is also the first report since Vodafone retired its 3G network and the start of our data collection period took place after the February 4th switch-off date. However, our Vodafone users have not observed any significant improvements in our measures of the mobile experience that could have benefited from additional spectrum for 4G.
In this report, we've analyzed our data gathered in the 90 days from the start of May 2020 to see how the Netherlands’ four national operators — KPN, T-Mobile, Tele2 and Vodafone — stack up. We continue to treat T-Mobile and Tele2 as separate operators as they still exist as different brands, despite the completion of the merger in early January 2019.
Vodafone launched its 5G network on the 28th of April, while KPN and T-Mobile launched theirs three months later on the 28th of July. Our next Mobile Network Experience report for the Netherlands will therefore be the first opportunity to observe the impact of 5G on the overall experience of our KPN and T-Mobile users. However, given that it is still early days for the country’s 5G networks and that the 3.5 GHz band will not be auctioned until early 2022, we expect the initial impact to be modest.
| Mobile Experience Awards Netherlands | ||||
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September 2020,
Netherlands Report
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T
Tele2
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V
Vodafone
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K
KPN
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T
T-Mobile
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Video Experience
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Games Experience
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Voice App Experience
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Download Speed Experience
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Upload Speed Experience
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4G Availability
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4G Coverage Experience
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Mobile Experience Awards Winners
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September 2020,
Netherlands
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|---|---|
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Video Experience
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T
T-Mobile
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Download Speed Experience
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T
T-Mobile
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Upload Speed Experience
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T
T-Mobile
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4G Coverage Experience
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K
KPN
|
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Mobile Experience Awards Draws
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September 2020, Netherlands
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|---|---|
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Games Experience
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T
Tele2
V
Vodafone
K
KPN
T
T-Mobile
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Voice App Experience
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T
Tele2
V
Vodafone
K
KPN
T
T-Mobile
|
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4G Availability
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T
Tele2
V
Vodafone
T
T-Mobile
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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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