Mobile Network Experience Report Poland November 2020

Poland

Mobile Network Experience Report
November 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

Despite 2020’s headwinds, our Polish users have seen their average download speeds increase

Our users’ average download speeds across all four national operators have increased since the last time we reported on the Polish mobile network experience. Our Orange and T-Mobile users saw the largest gains, with their average download speeds rising by 3.9 Mbps (17.3%) and 2.4 Mbps (12.8%). Their Play and Plus counterparts saw more modest — but still significant — improvements, with their scores rising by 0.8 Mbps (3.9%) and 1.1 Mbps (6.4%), respectively.

T-Mobile and Play are now neck-and-neck for second-place for Download Speed Experience, while Orange has held onto the top spot

The changes in Download Speed Experience detailed above have strengthened Orange’s lead in this regard, as its margin of victory has increased by 2.8 Mbps since our last report to at least 4.9 Mbps. Meanwhile, T-Mobile has statistically tied with Play for second place, when in our last report T-Mobile was placed third.

T-Mobile has increased its haul of awards to three, but Orange still holds most of our awards

T-Mobile has won three awards outright — Games Experience, Voice App Experience and Upload Speed Experience — up from the single award (Voice App Experience) that it won in our previous report. Orange’s haul of outright wins has dropped from five to four as a result. The operator still holds our Video Experience, Download Speed Experience, 4G Availability and 4G Coverage Experience awards singlehandedly.

T-Mobile overtakes Orange on Upload Speed Experience

T-Mobile has come top for Upload Speed Experience with a score that’s 0.3 Mbps higher than that of Orange. The tables have turned since our first look at Poland’s mobile network experience, when Orange won the Upload Speed Experience award with a score that was 0.2 Mbps higher than second-placed T-Mobile. The change in winner was mainly driven by a 0.4 Mbps (5.2%) drop in our Orange users’ average upload speeds, as their counterparts on T-Mobile saw their speeds rise by a modest 0.1 Mbps (0.8%).

T-Mobile breaks the tie on Games Experience, while Orange slips to second place

In our last report, Orange and T-Mobile were joint winners for our Games Experience award. This time T-Mobile gained the upper hand — winning the award outright and relegating Orange to second place for this measure of the mobile experience.

Introduction

While Orange remains the dominant operator in Poland as far as our awards table is concerned, T-Mobile is now not far behind it with three outright wins to Orange’s four. In addition, Orange still commands impressive margins of victory in terms of Download Speed Experience and 4G Availability, but those for Video Experience and 4G Coverage Experience are vulnerable should the runner-up for these awards — T-Mobile and Plus, respectively — choose to make a determined push.

Given that 4G Availability scores have fallen across all four operators since our last report it is likely that many of our Polish users are spending their time in more different locations than they did pre-COVID 19. For download speeds to have increased across the board by 0.8-3.9 Mbps in the middle of a pandemic that has adversely affected the mobile experience is impressive and is a testament to the work all four operators have done during this period in response to the crisis.

Play is still rolling out its network and is still relying on national roaming on T-Mobile & Orange to some extent. It expects to have 9,500 base stations by the end of 2021.

One factor that will serve to boost the Polish mobile network experience going forward is 5G rollout given that Plus, Orange and T-Mobile all launched 5G services during the summer. However, they’ve had to do so without mid-band spectrum given that an auction of spectrum in the 3.4GHz-3.8GHz range has been delayed until late this year or early in 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While our users observed increases in their average overall download speeds across all four operators, a different story emerges when we consider the 3G and 4G experience separately. Our users’ average 4G download speeds increased by 0.4-0.7 Mbps more than their overall speeds, but their average 3G download speed declined across the board. T-Mobile saw the largest drop in its 3G Download Speed score — a fall of 1.2 Mbps (24.1%), while Plus was not far behind with a drop of 1 Mbps (19.8%). Orange and Play saw more modest drops of 0.6 Mbps (13.4%) and 0.3 Mbps (7.8%), respectively.

Another big development in the Polish mobile market was the news that Iliad has been given clearance to buy a 40% stake in Play. Given Iliad’s efforts to disrupt the French and Italian markets through competitive pricing it will be interesting to see what further changes this may bring.

In this report, we've analyzed the mobile network experience of Poland’s four national operators — Orange, Play, Plus and T-Mobile, — in the 90 days starting August 1, 2020, to see how they measure up. We have used 5G measurements in addition to those from previous generations of mobile network technology when determining the overall scores for each metric.

Opensignal Awards Table

Mobile Experience Awards Poland
November 2020, Poland 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
November 2020, Poland
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
T-Mobile
68.7
Orange
70.8
Play
62.1
Plus
62.9
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
T-Mobile
68.7
Orange
70.8
Play
62.1
Plus
62.9
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
73.8 (± 0.44) 74.1 (± 0.33) 67.8 (± 0.45) 67.5 (± 0.47)
3G Video Experience
45.6 (± 1.67) 47.9 (± 1.81) 31.6 (± 1.34) 42.5 (± 1.46)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Video Experience in 0-100 points
74 (± 0.44)
74 (± 0.33)
68 (± 0.45)
67 (± 0.47)
3G Video Experience in 0-100 points
46 (± 1.67)
48 (± 1.81)
32 (± 1.34)
43 (± 1.46)
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Games Experience

Games Experience
in 0-100 points
T-Mobile
62.9
Orange
61.4
Play
59.5
Plus
57.7
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
72.3 (± 0.74) 67.1 (± 0.60) 65.0 (± 0.68) 65.1 (± 0.63)
3G Games Experience
35.6 (± 0.36) 35.9 (± 0.44) 37.5 (± 0.46) 36.4 (± 0.37)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Games Experience in 0-100 points
72 (± 0.74)
67 (± 0.60)
65 (± 0.68)
65 (± 0.63)
3G Games Experience in 0-100 points
36 (± 0.36)
36 (± 0.44)
37 (± 0.46)
36 (± 0.37)
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Voice App Experience

Voice App Experience
in 0-100 points
T-Mobile
78.8
Orange
78.2
Play
77.8
Plus
76.6
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
81.0 (± 0.26) 79.6 (± 0.26) 79.0 (± 0.24) 78.2 (± 0.27)
3G Voice App Experience
68.8 (± 0.78) 69.0 (± 0.89) 71.3 (± 0.66) 69.4 (± 0.71)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
81 (± 0.26)
80 (± 0.26)
79 (± 0.24)
78 (± 0.27)
3G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
69 (± 0.78)
69 (± 0.89)
71 (± 0.66)
69 (± 0.71)
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Download Speed Experience

Download Speed Experience
in Mbps
T-Mobile
21.4
Orange
26.3
Play
21.2
Plus
18.5
07.51522.530
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Download Speed
25.4 (± 0.46) 29.6 (± 0.42) 24.6 (± 0.39) 21.8 (± 0.35)
3G Download Speed
3.8 (± 0.11) 3.9 (± 0.12) 3.0 (± 0.07) 3.9 (± 0.13)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Download Speed in Mbps
25 (± 0.46)
30 (± 0.42)
25 (± 0.39)
22 (± 0.35)
3G Download Speed in Mbps
4 (± 0.11)
4 (± 0.12)
3 (± 0.07)
4 (± 0.13)
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

Upload Speed Experience

Upload Speed Experience
in Mbps
T-Mobile
7.4
Orange
7.1
Play
6.1
Plus
6.3
01.8753.755.6257.5
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Upload Speed
8.7 (± 0.13) 7.9 (± 0.12) 7.1 (± 0.11) 7.5 (± 0.13)
3G Upload Speed
1.5 (± 0.06) 1.5 (± 0.06) 1.0 (± 0.04) 1.1 (± 0.04)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Upload Speed in Mbps
9 (± 0.13)
8 (± 0.12)
7 (± 0.11)
7 (± 0.13)
3G Upload Speed in Mbps
1 (± 0.06)
1 (± 0.06)
1 (± 0.04)
1 (± 0.04)
Mobile Network Experience Report | November 2020 | © Opensignal Inc.

4G Availability

4G Availability
% of time
T-Mobile
82.4
Orange
88.6
Play
84.7
Plus
79.0
022.54567.590
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image

4G Coverage Experience

4G Coverage Experience
in 0-10 points
T-Mobile
8.4
Orange
9.0
Play
8.7
Plus
8.8
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