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In our last report, MegaFon and Tele2 were joint winners for the Video Experience award. This time MegaFon is the sole winner due to a 2.7 point increase in its score. This is the second time the operator has won the Video Experience award outright — it achieved the same feat in our May 2020 report. While Tele2’s score also improved, it did so by only 1.1 points — and it is statistically tied for second place with MTS, as the latter’s score rose by two points. The improvement in MTS’ score has pushed it up a category — from Good (55-65) to Very Good (65-75) — putting it in line with MegaFon and Tele2. Beeline has retained its Good rating and remains in last place.
In our previous two reports, Tele2 was the outright winner of the Games Experience and Voice App Experience awards. This time, however, it has been forced to share them with MTS as our users on MTS’ network have seen the largest improvements since our last report. The operator’s scores for Games Experience and Voice App Experience rose by 15.3 points (39.9%) and 5.3 points (7.2%), respectively. This is a remarkable turnaround for MTS as in our last report it was the only operator with a Very Poor (under 40) rating for Games Experience and a Poor (66-74) rating for Voice App Experience. This time, MTS has joined its peers in the Poor (40-65) and Acceptable (74-80) categories for these two metrics respectively.
MegaFon is the outright winner of the Upload Speed Experience award after sharing the glory with Beeline in our last report. This marks a return to the state of play seen in our first report on the Russian mobile network experience back in May 2020. MegaFon’s outright win occurred due to a 1.3 Mbps (19.4%) increase in the average upload speeds seen by our users on its network, which outpaced the 0.4 Mbps (5.5%) improvement seen by their Beeline counterparts and gave it a lead of 0.9 Mbps over the previous joint winner. Meanwhile, MTS and Tele2’s scores rose by 0.8 Mbps (12.7%) and 0.5 Mbps (7.7%) to stand at 6.8 Mbps and 6.3 Mbps, respectively.
Previously, our users reported falls of 2.7-4.6 percentage points in the proportion of time that they spent connected to 4G (depending on their choice of operator). This time, operators’ 4G Availability scores rose by 3.7-5.7 percentage points with three operators seeing improvements of more than five percentage points. This means that all four operators’ scores are higher than they were in our May 2020 report. MegaFon has made the most progress since then as its score has risen from 80.9% to 83.9%. However, Tele2 remains the winner of the 4G Availability award, claiming it for the third consecutive time.
Unlike our last two reports, this time MTS has made its presence felt as it has forced Tele2 to share the Games Experience and Voice App Experience awards. Also, MegaFon has reclaimed sole control of the Video Experience award and Tele2 is also no longer a joint winner. Similarly, MegaFon wins the Upload Speed Experience award outright, stripping Beeline of its only joint victory.
In contrast to the rapidly changing situation seen in our speed and experiential awards, our two measures of the extent of 4G networks have seen no change in award ownership since our first report on the Russian mobile network experience. Tele2 is now the outright winner of the 4G Availability Award for three reports in a row, while MTS has achieved the same feat for 4G Coverage Experience. In addition, in this report Tele2’s 4G Availability score rose back above the 85% mark and it is the only operator in this report with a score that meets or exceeds this milestone.
The average download speeds observed by our Russian users rose by 0.3-1.5 Mbps depending on their choice of operator and MegaFon’s lead has increased slightly from 6.1 Mbps to at least 6.3 Mbps. This is the third report in a row in which MegaFon has been the outright winner of the Download Speed Experience award.
Turning to developments in the Russian mobile market, MTS launched a large-scale 5G pilot network in in 14 locations in Moscow in March using the 4.9 GHz band and announced its plans to expand the pilot to St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg later this year. More recently, the country’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) gave its preliminary consent in May to an agreement proposed by MegaFon, Beeline, Rostelecom (Tele2’s parent company) and Rostelecom’s Bashtel subsidiary for the joint development of 5G networks.
One factor that will complicate Russia’s 5G rollout is the fact that the majority of the 3.4-3.8 GHz spectrum is allocated to satellite communications for government agencies. The telecoms ministry has proposed that the current 3.5GHz fixed-wireless licences will be returned ahead of refarming for initial 5G licences, potentially in 2021 in a limited range before the freeing up of the wider 3.4GHz-3.8GHz band at a later unknown date.
It is worth noting that MTS is the only Russian operator with a commercial licence for new 5G spectrum that is not suited to 4G or 3G — it holds a five-year 24.25GHz-24.65GHz mmWave concession across 83 regions, which was awarded in July 2020. For those readers interested in understanding mmWave’s capabilities Opensignal recently analyzed the mmWave mobile experience in the U.S. and found that our users reported average download speeds of 232.7-692.9 Mbps while connected to mmWave 5G, depending on their choice of operator, but users across all three operators spent less than 1% of their time connected to mmWave 5G.
In this report, we've analyzed our data gathered in the 90 day period beginning February 1 and ending May 1, 2021, to see how Russia’s four national operators — Beeline, MegaFon, MTS and Tele2 — measure up.
| Mobile Experience Awards Russia | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
May 2021,
Russia Report
|
B
Beeline
|
M
MegaFon
|
M
MTS
|
T
Tele2
|
Video Experience
| ||||
Games Experience
| ||||
Voice App Experience
| ||||
Download Speed Experience
| ||||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||||
4G Availability
| ||||
4G Coverage Experience
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
May 2021,
Russia
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
M
MegaFon
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
M
MegaFon
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
M
MegaFon
|
|
4G Availability
|
T
Tele2
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
M
MTS
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
May 2021, Russia
|
|---|---|
|
Games Experience
|
M
MTS
T
Tele2
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
M
MTS
T
Tele2
|
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Beeline
|
M
MegaFon
|
M
MTS
|
T
Tele2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Video Experience
| 65.4 (± 0.31) | 70.8 (± 0.22) | 68.4 (± 0.26) | 68.2 (± 0.29) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 55.1 (± 0.95) | 55.4 (± 0.82) | 58.7 (± 0.71) | 59.9 (± 0.98) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Beeline
|
65 (± 0.31) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
71 (± 0.22) |
|
M
MTS
|
68 (± 0.26) |
|
T
Tele2
|
68 (± 0.29) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Beeline
|
55 (± 0.95) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
55 (± 0.82) |
|
M
MTS
|
59 (± 0.71) |
|
T
Tele2
|
60 (± 0.98) |
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Beeline
|
M
MegaFon
|
M
MTS
|
T
Tele2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Games Experience
| 59.1 (± 0.40) | 52.0 (± 0.38) | 58.7 (± 0.32) | 57.0 (± 0.42) |
|
3G Games Experience
| 36.3 (± 0.21) | 35.6 (± 0.15) | 37.8 (± 0.28) | 41.4 (± 0.67) |
| 4G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Beeline
|
59 (± 0.40) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
52 (± 0.38) |
|
M
MTS
|
59 (± 0.32) |
|
T
Tele2
|
57 (± 0.42) |
| 3G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Beeline
|
36 (± 0.21) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
36 (± 0.15) |
|
M
MTS
|
38 (± 0.28) |
|
T
Tele2
|
41 (± 0.67) |
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Beeline
|
M
MegaFon
|
M
MTS
|
T
Tele2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 78.4 (± 0.17) | 77.4 (± 0.16) | 79.3 (± 0.13) | 78.8 (± 0.17) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 70.8 (± 0.46) | 70.1 (± 0.41) | 73.0 (± 0.37) | 74.6 (± 0.45) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Beeline
|
78 (± 0.17) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
77 (± 0.16) |
|
M
MTS
|
79 (± 0.13) |
|
T
Tele2
|
79 (± 0.17) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Beeline
|
71 (± 0.46) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
70 (± 0.41) |
|
M
MTS
|
73 (± 0.37) |
|
T
Tele2
|
75 (± 0.45) |
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Beeline
|
M
MegaFon
|
M
MTS
|
T
Tele2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Download Speed
| 17.6 (± 0.17) | 24.8 (± 0.19) | 17.2 (± 0.14) | 14.3 (± 0.12) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 7.5 (± 0.11) | 7.1 (± 0.11) | 8.2 (± 0.10) | 8.2 (± 0.13) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
B
Beeline
|
18 (± 0.17) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
25 (± 0.19) |
|
M
MTS
|
17 (± 0.14) |
|
T
Tele2
|
14 (± 0.12) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
B
Beeline
|
8 (± 0.11) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
7 (± 0.11) |
|
M
MTS
|
8 (± 0.10) |
|
T
Tele2
|
8 (± 0.13) |
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Beeline
|
M
MegaFon
|
M
MTS
|
T
Tele2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 8.4 (± 0.08) | 9.3 (± 0.08) | 7.9 (± 0.08) | 7.2 (± 0.06) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.7 (± 0.04) | 1.5 (± 0.03) | 1.8 (± 0.03) | 2.1 (± 0.05) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
B
Beeline
|
8 (± 0.08) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
9 (± 0.08) |
|
M
MTS
|
8 (± 0.08) |
|
T
Tele2
|
7 (± 0.06) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
B
Beeline
|
2 (± 0.04) |
|
M
MegaFon
|
1 (± 0.03) |
|
M
MTS
|
2 (± 0.03) |
|
T
Tele2
|
2 (± 0.05) |
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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