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With a score of 77.6 on the 100 points scale, SK telecom users had the best mobile video streaming experience, ahead of KT on 76.5 and LG U+ on 74.4. Video Experience is derived on an International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach, built upon detailed studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived video experience as reported by real people.
With an average upload speed of 14.4 Mbps LG U+ wins the award. In second place is SK telecom with a speed of 12.6 Mbps, ahead of KT's score of 11.2 Mbps. Upload speed is important for sharing files, photos or video through messaging apps, email or onto social media.
For multiplayer mobile gaming there is no significant difference seen between our users when connecting with LG U+ and SK telecom with scores of 87.5 and 87.1 on the 100 point scale. Games Experience reflects the sensitivity of multiple genres of mobile games to different real-world network conditions based on measurements from smartphone users.
Just as in Opensignal's last report on South Korea, our SK telecom users again saw the fastest average download speeds. This time they clocked up an impressive 71 Mbps, ahead of KT's users' speed of 53.3 Mbps and LG U+ with 51.2 Mbps.
In this report we see no change in the award winners from the last Opensignal report published in December 2020 on the overall mobile experience in South Korea.
In South Korea, the greatest and most interesting changes are happening using 5G. While this report compares the overall experience of South Korean users, Opensignal is also publishing a companion report on the 5G user experience in South Korea across the three major operators.
However, there are a number of new metrics included in this Mobile Network Experience report for the first time. In each category, we report the overall experience for all smartphone users, but we also publish supporting metrics for 5G users' experience. The difference is that these 5G users results reflect the overall experience across all mobile technologies — 4G and 5G — of 5G users alone, while the overall results are the average scores across all smartphone users, whether or not they have 5G.
| Mobile Experience Awards South Korea | |||
|---|---|---|---|
June 2021,
South Korea Report
|
K
KT
|
L
LG U+
|
S
SK telecom
|
Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
June 2021,
South Korea
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
S
SK telecom
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
L
LG U+
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
S
SK telecom
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
L
LG U+
|
|
4G Availability
|
L
LG U+
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
S
SK telecom
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
June 2021, South Korea
|
|---|---|
|
Games Experience
|
L
LG U+
S
SK telecom
|
Opensignal's Video Experience metric quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's networks. The metric is derived on an International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach, built upon detailed studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived video experience as reported by real people.
To calculate video experience, we are directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using this ITU approach to quantify the overall video experience for each operator on a scale from 0 to 100. The videos tested include a mixture of resolutions and are streamed directly from the world's largest video content providers.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
K
KT
|
L
LG U+
|
S
SK telecom
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Video Experience – 5G Users
| 81.2 (± 0.27) | 79.9 (± 0.35) | 81.5 (± 0.20) |
| Video Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
K
KT
|
81 (± 0.27) |
|
L
LG U+
|
80 (± 0.35) |
|
S
SK telecom
|
82 (± 0.20) |
The Games Experience metric quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination).
Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions including battle royale and massive online battle arena (MOBA) genres
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
K
KT
|
L
LG U+
|
S
SK telecom
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Games Experience – 5G Users
| 88.6 (± 0.38) | 87.5 (± 0.44) | 87.5 (± 0.32) |
| Games Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
K
KT
|
89 (± 0.38) |
|
L
LG U+
|
88 (± 0.44) |
|
S
SK telecom
|
87 (± 0.32) |
Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — for example mobile voice apps such as Kakaotalk, LINE, WhatsApp, or Skype — 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.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
K
KT
|
L
LG U+
|
S
SK telecom
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Voice App Experience – 5G Users
| 84.4 (± 0.15) | 84.5 (± 0.16) | 84.4 (± 0.12) |
| Voice App Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
K
KT
|
84 (± 0.15) |
|
L
LG U+
|
84 (± 0.16) |
|
S
SK telecom
|
84 (± 0.12) |
Measured in Mbps, Download Speed Experience represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across an operator's mobile data networks.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
K
KT
|
L
LG U+
|
S
SK telecom
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Download Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 200.4 (± 3.77) | 206.1 (± 5.25) | 238.6 (± 3.80) |
| Download Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
K
KT
|
200 (± 3.77) |
|
L
LG U+
|
206 (± 5.25) |
|
S
SK telecom
|
239 (± 3.80) |
Typically upload speeds are slower than download speeds, as current mobile broadband technologies focus resources on providing the best possible download speed for users consuming content on their devices. As mobile internet trends move away from downloading content to creating content and supporting real-time communications services, upload speeds are becoming more vital and new technologies are emerging that boost upstream capacity.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
K
KT
|
L
LG U+
|
S
SK telecom
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 19.2 (± 0.32) | 19.9 (± 0.43) | 20.0 (± 0.33) |
| Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
K
KT
|
19 (± 0.32) |
|
L
LG U+
|
20 (± 0.43) |
|
S
SK telecom
|
20 (± 0.33) |
4G Availability measures the proportion of time where users have a 4G connection. Notably, with the current 5G deployments a 5G smartphone must continue to be connected to 4G service even when using 5G. So, the amount of time users are able to connect to 4G is important even with the arrival of 5G.
Measured on a scale of 0-10, 4G Coverage Experience 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 this report, we also compare the mobile network experience of our smartphone users across South Korea.
Select any region or city below to display individual breakdown
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.
Opensignal is the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe. We are the independent authority for understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
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