Indonesia

Telkomsel once again wins Opensignal's Video Experience award — the fifth win in a row. This means that our Telkomsel users continue to enjoy the best quality of mobile video streaming experience in Indonesia. Telkomsel's overall score this time is 62.7 points (on a 0-100 scale), the operator's score has dipped slightly — by 0.1 points — compared to our last report.

In contrast, our users on the rest of the national networks — XL, Indosat, 3 and Smartfren — saw their Video Experience improve, compared to our last report. Our Indosat users saw the greatest improvement of 4.7 points, followed by a 3.2 points improvement seen by our users on 3's network, respectively. As a result, 3 has reduced the gap with Telkomsel — from 4.3 points to 1.1 points with a score of 61.7 points. Smartfren and XL users saw a relatively modest improvement of 2.4 and 2.3 points, respectively, which was good enough to upgrade Smartfren's Video Experience rating from Poor to Fair and XL's rating from Fair to Good. This means that users on four out of five networks in Indonesia observed a Good Video Experience.

Opensignal's Video Experience quantifies video streaming quality by measuring real-world video streams using dedicated video streaming tests to reflect users' true experience over an operator's mobile network. The calculation takes picture quality, video loading time and stalling rate into account and combines these measurements using an ITU-based approach to reflect the perceived video experience as reported by real people. A Good rating indicates that users enjoyed an acceptable experience when streaming mobile video at lower resolutions, but loading times may have been slow, and stalling may have occurred, especially at higher resolutions.

As we descend to lower ratings, loading times lengthen, and users encounter more stops and stutters in video streams, most notably at higher resolutions.

3 remains the outright winner of Opensignal's Games Experience award with a score of 69.4 points (on a 100-point scale) this time, as its peers continue to lag with significantly lower scores — ranging between 57.6 points and 49.7 points. Across all operators our users experienced a much better multiplayer gaming experience using 4G compared with 3G. This difference highlights the importance of switching off 3G services as soon as is practical and re-using the spectrum for more modern 4G or even 5G services.

Opensignal's Games Experience quantifies users' multiplayer mobile gaming experience across cellular networks. 3's score placed in the Fair category, which means most users on its network deemed the experience average; it also indicates that the gameplay experience was generally controllable, with the majority of users noticing a delay between their actions and the outcomes in the game. Lower scores mean users' experience becomes less enjoyable, marred with increased delays and lack of controllability in gameplay.

3 holds on to our Voice App Experience award with a score of 78.6 points (out of 100). The operator's lead over second-placed Telkomsel (76.1) has increased slightly on this measure since our last report, rising from 2.2 points to 2.5 points. This is due to a 0.1 points rise reported by our 3 users and 0.2 points decline reported by our Telkomsel users. Meanwhile, Indosat's score improved by 1.7 points to 74.6 points and placed in the Acceptable category — up from the Poor category. Smartfren and XL's scores grew by a modest 1.4 points and 0.5 points respectively.

An Acceptable rating means some users were satisfied with the quality of the call and were generally able to comprehend without repetition, while some may have suffered from perceptible call quality impairments such as clicking sounds or distortion. Likewise, a Poor rating means many users were dissatisfied and likely suffered from increased call quality impairments.

Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality. Voice App Experience for each operator is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100.

Telkomsel has retained the top spot for Download Speed Experience as our users on its network observed overall download speeds of 13.4 Mbps. However, its lead over XL has shrunk this time — from 1.4 Mbps (12.7%) seen in our previous report to 0.9 Mbps (7.1%) this time. This is because average download speeds observed by our XL users rose by 1.3 Mbps to 12.6 Mbps, compared to the 0.8 Mbps rise seen by our Telkomsel users. Our users on Indosat also saw their Download Speed Experience improve by 1.3 Mbps with speeds averaging 12.1 Mbps.

Overall the average download speed in Indonesia has improved across the board, compared to our last report. The largest improvement of 1.7 Mbps was seen by our users on 3. As a result, the operator's Download Speed Experience has now surpassed the 10 Mbps mark. Meanwhile, Smartfren remains last-placed, with users observing average speeds of 6.3 Mbps — an improvement of 1.4 Mbps.

When we break down Download Speed Experience by mobile technology generation, in 4G download speed measurements, our Telkomsel users saw the fastest average speeds — 14.9 Mbps — up by 0.7 Mbps (5.2%) since our last report. Our users on the other networks saw a greater improvement. XL's score grew by 1.2 Mbps (9.4%) to 13.9 Mbps, while Indosat's score improved by 1.4 Mbps (11.9%) to 13.1 Mbps. Our users on 3 saw the most significant increase, as their 4G download speeds rose by 1.9 Mbps (18.4%) to 12.1 Mbps. As a result, XL has reduced the gap with Telkomsel's score to 0.9 Mbps (6.7%) down from 1.4 Mbps (11%) in our previous report.

Telkomsel is once again the outright winner of our Upload Speed Experience award. Our Telkomsel users reported the most significant increase of 1.1 Mbps (19.9%), compared to our last report, with overall upload speeds averaging 6.8 Mbps. Meanwhile, our users on other networks reported relatively lower improvements on this measure — between 0.1-0.4 Mbps — except our users on 3's network who saw their Upload Speed Experience dip by 0.1 Mbps (1.6%). With these changes, Telkomsel has expanded its lead over second-placed Indosat (5.7 Mbps) from 0.1 Mbps (2.3%) to 1.1 Mbps (18.6%).

Upload speeds are becoming increasingly important in mobile services, with changing usage patterns and consumption habits. For example, mobile users now engage more on social media apps — creating and sharing high-resolution images and videos — and are moving away from content consumption to content creation, which gives operators with the fastest upload speeds a distinct advantage.

Indonesia's 4G-only operator Smartfren holds onto our 4G Availability award, this time with a score of 97.9% — a slight dip of 0.1 percentage points since our last report. While Smartfren remains the only operator in Indonesia where our users observed 4G Availability in excess of the 95% mark, 3 is 1.1 percentage points short of hitting that mark. The operator is second-placed with a score of 93.9%, followed by Indosat with a score of 92%. Both 3 and Indosat's scores have remained statistically unchanged since our last report. Meanwhile, the 4G Availability of our Telkomsel users declined by 1.2 percentage points to 89.3% and that of their XL counterparts improved by 1.2 percentage points to 91.2%.

Little has changed since our last report regarding 4G Coverage Experience with Telkomsel still occupying first place. The operator's score increased slightly by 0.2 points to 8.5 points and now leads second-placed XL by 2.3 points. Meanwhile, 3, Indosat and XL's scores increased by 0.1 points, with scores ranging between 4.6 points to 6.2 points. Smartfren was the only operator whose score of 5 points remained unchanged since the last report.

Given the unevenly distributed population density in the archipelago, with the most populated centers in and around Java. 4G Coverage Experience is a crucial measure in Indonesia. A score of 8.5 shows that Telkomsel's users can find a 4G signal in many more locations than our users on other operators.

While Opensignal's 4G Availability measures the proportion of time users spent connected to 4G, our 4G Coverage Experience metric is a measure of 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.