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Banglalink once again won our Video Experience award, with an impressive improvement of 5.6 points (on a 100-point scale) compared to our last report. And as a result of this improvement, Banglalink not only increased its lead over its rival Grameenphone — from 1.7 to 7 points — but also became the first Bangladeshi operator whose users enjoyed a Good (55-65) Video Experience. Meanwhile, with relatively lower improvements, the user experience of all of its rivals — Airtel, Grameenphone and Robi — continued to place in the Fair category. A Good rating indicates that our users enjoyed an acceptable experience when streaming mobile video at lower resolutions. However, loading times could still be slow and stalling was not uncommon, especially at higher resolutions.
We saw some noteworthy improvements in our Voice App Experience measure, which accesses the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — on a 100-points scale. The most significant improvement of 8.2 points was seen by our Grameenphone users, followed by an increase of 5.2 points reported by their peers on Robi. Our Banglalink users observed the third-largest improvement of 3.9 points, which was good enough to push the operator’s Voice App Experience rating from Poor to Acceptable and once again win our award on this measure. Our Airtel users saw the lowest improvement of 3.7 points and as a result, Airtel continued to place in the Poor category along with Grameenphone and Robi.
Banglalink leads in the multiplayer mobile gaming experience with a noteworthy improvement of 10 points to 48.6 points out of a possible 100 and its score was 6.9 points higher than that of second-placed Airtel. However, Banglalink, Airtel and Grameenphone placed in the Poor (40-65) category, while Robi placed in the Very Poor (under 40) category. This indicates that playing multiplayer mobile games over wireless networks remains challenging for our users in Bangladesh and that there is considerable room for improvement in this measure of the mobile experience.
In our previous report, we saw Airtel and Grameenphone deadlocked for our 4G Availability award. However, this time with users reporting increased time connected to 4G across the board, Airtel and Robi became joint winners with statistically tied scores for this measure of the mobile experience. While our Grameenphone and Airtel users saw their 4G Availability improve by 2.8 points and 3.1 points respectively, their counterparts on Robi saw the largest improvement of 4.7 percentage points and surpassed the 80% milestone — a feat achieved by Grameenphone and Airtel in our last report. Banglalink was the only operator with a score below 80%, but judging by the 2.9 percentage point improvement in its score, it won’t be long before all four of Bangladesh’s operators have a 4G Availability score of 80% or more.
While our Banglalink users continue to observe the fastest average download speeds in Bangladesh — 9.1 Mbps — their peers on Grameenphone experienced the fastest average upload speed of 3.8 Mbps. Grameenphone reclaimed the Upload Speed Experience award that it had lost to Banglalink last time with an improvement of 1.1 Mbps. That said, we saw fierce competition for both awards, with just 1.7 Mbps separating all four operators’ score in Download Speed Experience, which narrowed down to less than 1 Mbps in Upload Speed Experience.
Grameenphone won our 4G Coverage Experience award with a score of 6.8 points (out of 10). Since the last report, we saw a 0.8 point (on a scale of 10) improvement on both Grameenphone and Banglalink’s score. However, in percentage terms, the growth in Banglalink’s score (23.9%) was almost double compared to the increase in Grameenphone’s score(12.5%). Meanwhile, Airtel and Robi followed Grameenphone closely with a score of 6.4 points – an improvement of 0.6 points or 10.4%, in the past six months.
In this report, we examined the mobile network experience of our users on the four nationwide mobile network operators in Bangladesh — Airtel, Banglalink, Grameenphone and Robi — over a period of 90 days beginning October 1, 2020, to see how they fared.
A quick look at our awards table might suggest that not a lot has changed in Bangladesh in the last six months. But since our previous report, Banglalink has gone from winning five out of our seven national awards down to four — it lost a close run race with Grameenphone for the Upload Speed Experience award. Banglalink may have lost some ground, but it remains the operator to beat in terms of mobile network experience. Our users in Bangladesh have reported significant progress across the board, which means that the overall mobile network experience in Bangladesh is improving.
Looking at Video Experience, our users reported an improvement of 0.7% to 10.5% in their experience and Banglalink became the first operator to garner a Good Video Experience rating. With more and more users in Bangladesh preferring mobile phones to watch online video, the mobile Video Experience is becoming an increasingly important aspect of mobile network experience in the country; hence any operator who provides greater Video Experience definitely has an edge, and at present, Banglalink clearly holds that advantage.
On our measure of Voice App Experience, users reported an improvement of 5.4% to 12.9%. While our Banglalink users perceived the best Voice App Experience, the greatest progress of 12.9% was reported by our Grameenphone users.
Turning to our speed measurements, our users on average experienced 10.9% to 15.2% faster download speeds and 9.1% to 40.9% faster upload speeds, compared to our previous report. We also recorded improvements in 4G Availability, as a result of which three out of four national networks score more than 83% on this measure, which means our Bangladeshi 4G users on at least three out of four networks were able to connect to a 4G signal more than 83% of the time, on average. This indicates that 4G access is becoming increasingly prevalent in Bangladesh, which is commendable, given the 4G technology was launched in the country fairly recently.
Additionally, the improvements that we have seen in our other metrics, across the board, are likely due to a significant improvement in 4G Availability since our other metrics are affected by whether the user is connected to 4G. A higher 4G Availability can help improve overall scores.
| Mobile Experience Awards Bangladesh | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
February 2021,
Bangladesh Report
|
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
B
Banglalink
|
A
Airtel
|
Video Experience
| ||||
Games Experience
| ||||
Voice App Experience
| ||||
Download Speed Experience
| ||||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||||
4G Availability
| ||||
4G Coverage Experience
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
February 2021,
Bangladesh
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
Games Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
B
Banglalink
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
G
Grameenphone
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
G
Grameenphone
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
February 2021, Bangladesh
|
|---|---|
|
4G Availability
|
R
Robi
A
Airtel
|
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
B
Banglalink
|
A
Airtel
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Video Experience
| 58.4 (± 0.47) | 54.0 (± 0.57) | 66.3 (± 0.71) | 53.8 (± 0.61) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 38.2 (± 1.01) | 39.8 (± 1.24) | 47.5 (± 1.28) | 45.3 (± 1.33) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
58 (± 0.47) |
|
R
Robi
|
54 (± 0.57) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
66 (± 0.71) |
|
A
Airtel
|
54 (± 0.61) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
38 (± 1.01) |
|
R
Robi
|
40 (± 1.24) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
47 (± 1.28) |
|
A
Airtel
|
45 (± 1.33) |
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
B
Banglalink
|
A
Airtel
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Games Experience
| 49.0 (± 0.48) | 44.9 (± 0.56) | 61.3 (± 0.61) | 46.7 (± 0.66) |
|
3G Games Experience
| 33.8 (± 0.13) | 34.7 (± 0.24) | 36.7 (± 0.30) | 36.1 (± 0.27) |
| 4G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
49 (± 0.48) |
|
R
Robi
|
45 (± 0.56) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
61 (± 0.61) |
|
A
Airtel
|
47 (± 0.66) |
| 3G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
34 (± 0.13) |
|
R
Robi
|
35 (± 0.24) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
37 (± 0.30) |
|
A
Airtel
|
36 (± 0.27) |
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
B
Banglalink
|
A
Airtel
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 75.2 (± 0.20) | 72.7 (± 0.30) | 79.0 (± 0.24) | 73.6 (± 0.33) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 64.9 (± 0.43) | 65.2 (± 0.74) | 70.9 (± 0.54) | 68.6 (± 0.68) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
75 (± 0.20) |
|
R
Robi
|
73 (± 0.30) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
79 (± 0.24) |
|
A
Airtel
|
74 (± 0.33) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
65 (± 0.43) |
|
R
Robi
|
65 (± 0.74) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
71 (± 0.54) |
|
A
Airtel
|
69 (± 0.68) |
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
B
Banglalink
|
A
Airtel
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Download Speed
| 9.3 (± 0.08) | 8.5 (± 0.15) | 11.2 (± 0.16) | 8.3 (± 0.16) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 4.5 (± 0.08) | 4.7 (± 0.10) | 5.5 (± 0.12) | 5.5 (± 0.12) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
9 (± 0.08) |
|
R
Robi
|
8 (± 0.15) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
11 (± 0.16) |
|
A
Airtel
|
8 (± 0.16) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
5 (± 0.08) |
|
R
Robi
|
5 (± 0.10) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
6 (± 0.12) |
|
A
Airtel
|
6 (± 0.12) |
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
G
Grameenphone
|
R
Robi
|
B
Banglalink
|
A
Airtel
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 4.9 (± 0.05) | 4.2 (± 0.06) | 4.3 (± 0.07) | 4.2 (± 0.07) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.1 (± 0.03) | 1.0 (± 0.03) | 1.1 (± 0.03) | 1.1 (± 0.03) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
5 (± 0.05) |
|
R
Robi
|
4 (± 0.06) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
4 (± 0.07) |
|
A
Airtel
|
4 (± 0.07) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
G
Grameenphone
|
1 (± 0.03) |
|
R
Robi
|
1 (± 0.03) |
|
B
Banglalink
|
1 (± 0.03) |
|
A
Airtel
|
1 (± 0.03) |
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.
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