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Since we first started reporting on Voice App Experience in Mexico this time last year, Telcel has been the only operator to win the award for this measure of the mobile experience and this report is no exception to this ‘rule’. However, all three national operators saw their scores decline by between 3.5 and 4.4 points and as a consequence, both Telcel and AT&T have joined Movistar in the Poor (66-74) category, having had Acceptable (74-80) ratings in our previous report.
Telcel has two reasons to celebrate as far as Download Speed Experience is concerned. In addition to winning this award for the fifth time in a row, our users on its network saw their average overall download speeds rise by an impressive 4.3 Mbps (18.7%) to reach 27.4 Mbps — a staggering 11.8 Mbps (76.0%) ahead of second-placed Movistar and twice as fast as the 13.7 Mbps seen by our AT&T users.
AT&T has now racked up its sixth successive win for 4G Availability. The operator’s score was 3.3 percentage points ahead of second-placed Telcel, slightly down from the gap of 3.9 percentage points observed by our users in our previous report. When it comes to 4G Coverage Experience Telcel also still has the edge, as it has held onto this award for two reports in a row. This measure of the mobile experience analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
While our Telcel users continue to enjoy the fastest average overall upload speeds in Mexico, they are down 0.3 Mbps from our last report, while those seen by our AT&T users have risen by 0.2 Mbps — as a consequence Telcel’s lead has dropped from 3.3 Mbps (46.6%) to 2.8 Mbps (37.2%), a decline of 0.6 Mbps. However, our Movistar users have seen the largest improvement in their Upload Speed Experience as it has risen by 0.7 Mbps (12.3%) to 6.3 Mbps and 1.1 Mbps below that of their AT&T counterparts.
Telcel continues to hold the lion’s share of our awards, having held onto those for Video Experience, Games Experience, Voice App Experience, Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience. The only award that it did not win outright was that for 4G Availability, which continues to be held by AT&T.
Since our previous report, as part of its preparations for 5G Telcel has acquired an additional 50 MHz of 3.5 GHz spectrum, this time from domestic fixed line operator Axtel. This is on top of the 50 MHz that it obtained from its fixed-line sister company Telmex back in January.
Mexico began to lift the restrictions that had been imposed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-May, with similar changes following at the start of June (the beginning of our data collection period for this report). However, given that the number of cases was still high in late September it is likely that behavioural changes among our Mexican users due to the pandemic have influenced our results and these may well have contributed to the declines we have observed in some of our measures of the mobile experience.
In this report, we've analyzed the mobile network experience of Mexico’s three national operators in the 90 days starting June 1, 2020. We We measured the network experience at a national level across seven of our metrics to see how Telcel, Movistar and AT&T performed.
| Mobile Experience Awards Mexico | |||
|---|---|---|---|
October 2020,
Mexico Report
|
T
Telcel
|
M
Movistar
|
A
AT&T
|
Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
October 2020,
Mexico
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
T
Telcel
|
|
Games Experience
|
T
Telcel
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
T
Telcel
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
T
Telcel
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
T
Telcel
|
|
4G Availability
|
A
AT&T
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
T
Telcel
|
Telcel has won the Video Experience award for the fourth time in a row — its score of 71 is unchanged from our previous report. More movement was seen by our Movistar and AT&T users — Movistar’s score fell by 1.1 points (2%), while AT&T’s rose by 2.3 points (4%). Because of these changes, the two operators were no longer tied for second-place with AT&T forming up behind Telcel. Telcel’s lead has declined from the 12.7 points it enjoyed in our last report to a more modest but still remarkable 10.5 points.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telcel
|
M
Movistar
|
A
AT&T
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Video Experience
| 76.6 (± 0.07) | 69.3 (± 0.25) | 62.5 (± 0.27) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 49.4 (± 0.34) | 33.0 (± 0.63) | 48.7 (± 0.80) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telcel
|
77 (± 0.07) |
|
M
Movistar
|
69 (± 0.25) |
|
A
AT&T
|
62 (± 0.27) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telcel
|
49 (± 0.34) |
|
M
Movistar
|
33 (± 0.63) |
|
A
AT&T
|
49 (± 0.80) |
Breaking down the Mexican Video Experience by category, there is no change from our previous report, with Telcel remaining the only operator on which our users observed a Very Good (65-75) Video Experience and both AT&T and Movistar holding onto their Good (55-65) ratings. Looking at our users’ experience broken down by mobile technology generation, our Telcel users enjoyed an Excellent (75 or above) 4G Video Experience. This means that our Telcel users observed a very consistent experience across all video streaming providers and resolutions tested, with fast loading times and almost non-existent stalling, when on its 4G network.
Telcel has won our Games Experience award for the second time in a row, this time with a score of 44.3, 2.9 points ahead of second-placed AT&T. Telcel’s lead has dropped to 2.9 points, down from the 4.7 point lead it enjoyed in our previous report.
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telcel
|
M
Movistar
|
A
AT&T
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Games Experience
| 52.3 (± 0.22) | 39.4 (± 0.07) | 49.6 (± 0.31) |
|
3G Games Experience
| 35.9 (± 0.07) | 32.8 (± 0.13) | 32.6 (± 0.16) |
| 4G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telcel
|
52 (± 0.22) |
|
M
Movistar
|
39 (± 0.07) |
|
A
AT&T
|
50 (± 0.31) |
| 3G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telcel
|
36 (± 0.07) |
|
M
Movistar
|
33 (± 0.13) |
|
A
AT&T
|
33 (± 0.16) |
Opensignal’s Games Experience metric is a measure of how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-100, it analyzes how the multiplayer mobile Games Experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter to determine the impact on gameplay and the overall multiplayer Games Experience.
The 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.
Telcel continues to hold onto the Voice App Experience award, making this the third report in a row in which it has done so. However, both its and AT&T’s scores fell by enough to drop them down a category — from Acceptable (74-80) to Poor (66-74), putting them level with Movistar. A Poor Voice App Experience means that many users were dissatisfied and experienced call quality impairments such as distortion, clicking sounds or silence.
All three operators saw their scores drop by at least 3.5 points, with our Movistar users seeing the largest decline — 4.4 points (6.1%), while our AT&T users saw the smallest drop in in their Voice App Experience, both in absolute and percentage terms.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telcel
|
M
Movistar
|
A
AT&T
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 75.1 (± 0.09) | 72.0 (± 0.19) | 74.0 (± 0.15) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 65.4 (± 0.18) | 59.5 (± 0.28) | 59.7 (± 0.39) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telcel
|
75 (± 0.09) |
|
M
Movistar
|
72 (± 0.19) |
|
A
AT&T
|
74 (± 0.15) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Telcel
|
65 (± 0.18) |
|
M
Movistar
|
59 (± 0.28) |
|
A
AT&T
|
60 (± 0.39) |
Turning to 4G Voice App Experience, in our previous report, our users observed an Acceptable (74-80) experience on all three networks but this time round, our Movistar users saw their 4G Voice App Experience drop down to a Poor (66-74) rating.
Our users across all three of Mexico’s national operators have observed significant increases in their average overall download speeds since our last report. Our Telcel users saw by far the largest increase — 4.3 Mbps (18.7%) — while their counterparts on Movistar and AT&T saw improvements of 1.5 Mbps (10.6%) and 1.4 Mbps (11.5%), respectively. Because of the impressive uptick in Telcel’s Download Speed Experience score, the gap between it and second-placed Movistar has widened from the 9 Mbps (64%) our users observed in our previous report to 11.8 Mbps (76%).
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telcel
|
M
Movistar
|
A
AT&T
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Download Speed
| 33.2 (± 0.10) | 22.0 (± 0.14) | 15.1 (± 0.11) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 5.3 (± 0.04) | 2.9 (± 0.04) | 5.0 (± 0.10) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telcel
|
33 (± 0.10) |
|
M
Movistar
|
22 (± 0.14) |
|
A
AT&T
|
15 (± 0.11) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telcel
|
5 (± 0.04) |
|
M
Movistar
|
3 (± 0.04) |
|
A
AT&T
|
5 (± 0.10) |
Turning to our submetrics — 4G Download Speed and 3G Download Speed, Telcel has broken past the 30 Mbps mark for 4G Download Speed. Its score for this measure of the mobile experience rose by an impressive 5.1 Mbps (18.3%) to average 33.2 Mbps.
In sharp contrast to our previous report when our Telcel users reported an impressive 21.4% increase in their average overall upload speeds, this time round they declined by 3.2% (0.3 Mbps), while their Movistar and AT&T counterparts saw their Upload Speed Experience scores rise by 0.7 Mbps (12.3%) and 0.2 Mbps (3.3%), respectively. Because of these changes, Telcel’s lead over second-placed AT&T has dropped from 3.3 Mbps (46.6%) to 2.8 Mbps (37.2%), a decline of 0.6 Mbps.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Telcel
|
M
Movistar
|
A
AT&T
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 12.5 (± 0.05) | 9.0 (± 0.08) | 8.4 (± 0.07) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.4 (± 0.02) | 1.0 (± 0.02) | 1.2 (± 0.03) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telcel
|
12 (± 0.05) |
|
M
Movistar
|
9 (± 0.08) |
|
A
AT&T
|
8 (± 0.07) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Telcel
|
1 (± 0.02) |
|
M
Movistar
|
1 (± 0.02) |
|
A
AT&T
|
1 (± 0.03) |
When we break our users average upload speeds down by mobile technology generation, it’s interesting to see that Movistar’s 4G Upload Speed score has overtaken that of AT&T by 0.6 Mbps. However, as might be expected given the overall results, our Telcel users observed the fastest 4G Upload and 3G Upload speeds in Mexico.
Our AT&T and Telcel users have observed small declines in the proportion of time they spent connected to 4G — the operators’ 4G Availability scores have fallen by 1.9 and 1.3 percentage points since our last report, respectively. As a consequence, AT&T’s score has fallen below the 90% mark, Telcel’s score has dropped below 85% and AT&T’s lead over second-placed Telcel has dropped by 0.6 percentage points to 3.3 percentage points. Meanwhile, our Movistar users saw the proportion of time they spent connected to 4G rise by 0.1 of a percentage point and the operator’s score remains just under the 80% mark.
Telcel has won the 4G Coverage Experience award for the second time in a row, this time with a score of 7.3 points out of 10 — up 0.2 points from our last report. Our AT&T users observed smaller improvements in their 4G Coverage Experience and as a consequence, Telcel’s lead in this measure of the mobile experience has grown by 0.2 points to 1.7 points.
Our 4G Coverage Experience metric measures how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-10, it analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
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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