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Orange is the outright winner of the Download Speed Experience award for the third consecutive time. Our users on its network enjoyed average download speeds of 29.7 Mbps which is a 3.4 Mbps (12.9%) increase compared to the previous report. But Orange’s lead over its nearest rival decreased from 4.9 Mbps to 3.3 Mbps, as our users on other Polish operators also saw impressive speed boosts. T-Mobile’s score soared by 5 Mbps (23.2%) while Play’s increased by 4.2 Mbps (19.8%) since the last report. Compared to their counterparts on other networks, our Plus users saw only a modest improvement of 0.4 Mbps (2.3%) in their average download speeds. The operator continues to lag on this measure and the gap between Plus and its competitors’ score has widened.
In our first Mobile Network Experience report on Poland, Orange won the award for Upload Speed Experience — however, due to declines in average upload speeds experienced by our users, it lost to T-Mobile in the following report. This time, Orange pulled through and thanks to an increase of 1 Mbps (14.5%) in its average upload speeds, forced a statistical tie with T-Mobile — which resulted in a joint victory for both operators. Our users on both Play and Plus saw average download speeds of 6.7 Mbps, with increases of 8.6% and 5.9% since our last report, respectively.
Orange secures yet another outright win for Video Experience, this time with a score of 72.6 points — an increase of 1.8 points (2.5%) since our previous report. Orange has kept firm hold of this award since we started publishing reports on mobile network experience in Poland. However, T-Mobile is hot on Orange’s heels — the operator saw a 3.3 (4.8%) point surge in its score and managed to narrow Orange’s lead from 2.1 to 0.6 points. Play saw the biggest improvement with an increase of four points (6.5%), the operator scored 66.2 points and joined Orange and T-Mobile in the Very Good (65-75) category. This means our users experienced generally fast loading times and only occasional stalling when streaming videos on their mobile devices.
T-Mobile won the Voice App Experience award outright in our previous two reports — and it was also the sole winner of the Games Experience award in our last report on Poland. However, this time the operator shares these two awards with Orange, who forced statistical ties. Also, both operators have moved up a category in both metrics . They placed in the Good (80-87) category for Voice App Experience — this means many users were satisfied, but some experienced minor quality impairments. For Games Experience, T-Mobile and Orange ranked as Fair (65-75) — most users felt they had control over the game, but the majority of players noticed a delay between their actions and the outcomes in the game. Play and Plus stayed in the Acceptable (74-80) and Poor (40-65) categories for Voice App Experience and Games Experience, respectively. However, only two points separate all four operators in Voice App Experience.
For the third time in a row, Orange remains unmatched in terms of 4G Availability and 4G Coverage Experience. Regarding 4G Availability, Orange’s score rose by 1.8 percentage points, causing it to move back above the 90% mark that it slipped below in our last report. Other Polish operators have yet to surpass the 90% threshold. However, T-Mobile saw the largest increase in this metric — a gain of 4.1 percentage points compared to the previous report. Orange also came first in 4G Coverage Experience, scoring 9.1 on a 10-point scale — ahead of Plus (8.9) and Play (8.8). This metric analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
In Opensignal's third mobile network experience report on Poland, Orange triumphs in all seven categories — with four outright wins and three joint victories with T-Mobile. Orange outright wins awards for the third time in the row for Video Experience, Download Speed Experience, 4G Availability and 4G Coverage Experience. T-Mobile retains its awards for Games Experience, Voice App Experience and Upload Speed Experience, but this time has to share them with Orange — making this the first report in which Orange has stood on the winners’ podium for Voice App Experience. Noteworthy, Orange was a joint winner for Games Experience and the outright winner of the Upload Speed Experience award our May 2020 report, but T-Mobile was the sole winner for both in our last report.
Polish mobile service providers are still waiting for a key spectrum auction of new mid bands — the government intends to allocate the 3.7 GHz band by 27th August 2021, after the original tender has been delayed due to the pandemic and changes in legislation.
However, all four Polish operators have already launched their 5G networks and have big plans to expand them further. Plus plans to cover 11 million people in 150 towns and cities by the end of 2021, using 1,700 base stations. The operator claims to have provided 5G coverage to 5.2 million Poles by the end of November 2020, using the 2.6 GHz band — the 5G footprint includes the capital city of Warsaw along with other major cities in Eastern Poland, where Plus rolled-out its 5G network with Nokia’s support.
Notably, in March 2021, Plus decided to sell its network assets to Cellnex, a mobile tower firm, for EUR1.6 billion — including 7,000 towers and active infrastructure, that includes radio carriers, fibre backbone network and a network of microwave radio links. As part of the deal, Cellnex agreed to deploy 1,500 new sites for Plus for EUR 600 million, dedicated mainly to 5G. This is not the first Cellnex investment in Poland, as it purchased 60% of Play’s infrastructure unit earlier in October 2020, for EUR 800 million. Speaking of Play — the operator, acquired by the French telco group Iliad, secured a PLN 100 million ($27 million) investment from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to fund its further 5G roll-out. It has also entered a partnership with Samsung to test Samsung’s 4G and 5G solutions in terms of their performance and their ability to interoperate with Play’s 2G/3G legacy networks. Play will conduct the trials using its labs and commercial networks in the second quarter of 2021.
Our results in this report are based on measurements collected across all major mobile operators in Poland – Orange, Play, Plus and T-Mobile – over the period of 90 days between February 1, 2021, and May 1, 2021. 5G measurements contributed to the overall scores.
| Mobile Experience Awards Poland | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
May 2021,
Poland Report
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O
Orange
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P
Play
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P
Plus
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T
T-Mobile
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Video Experience
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Games Experience
| ||||
Voice App Experience
| ||||
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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May 2021,
Poland
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
O
Orange
|
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Download Speed Experience
|
O
Orange
|
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4G Availability
|
O
Orange
|
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4G Coverage Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
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May 2021, Poland
|
|---|---|
|
Games Experience
|
O
Orange
T
T-Mobile
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
O
Orange
T
T-Mobile
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
O
Orange
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.
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