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The two leading operators — FarEasTone and Chunghwa — have a lead of over 100 Mbps in the 5G Download Speed experienced by our users compared to Taiwan's other operators. They are the only two operators to top 300Mbps in the average 5G Download Speed experienced by our users. But FarEasTone is still significantly ahead of second placed Chunghwa's score of 381.8 Mbps with a speed of 436.2 Mbps.
In the six months since our last report, Taiwan Mobile joins the two leaders in seeing large increase in the 5G Download Speed experienced by our users. Taiwan Mobile's score increased from 236.5 Mbps to 257.7 Mbps this time. However, T Star users average speed dropped from 150.9 Mbps to 128.4 Mbps indicating that this is still early days for the 5G era and there is much headroom to improve the 5G experience as new 5G technologies arrive.
Opensignal analyzed the multiplayer mobile gaming experience using 5G. Our Chunghwa and FarEasTone users saw scores of 87.3 and 88.7 — an Excellent experience — on our 100 point scale to jointly win the award. This means our users saw no noticeable delay in almost all cases and received immediate feedback on their actions. Games Experience considers multiple genres of real-time multiplayer games, including battle royale games — examples of the genre include Fortnite and PUBG — and massive online battle arena (MOBA) titles like Arena of Valor.
Chunghwa and FarEasTone win the first Opensignal 5G Video Experience award with identical scores of 85.2 on our 100 point scale. Taiwan Mobile and T Star were just behind with scores of 83.2 and 80.8 respectively. Video Experience quantifies the real-world mobile video streaming experience using an ITU-derived methodology which connects Opensignal's 5G video measurements with the perceived video experience of real people.
Previously, Taiwan Mobile won the award outright, but this time FarEasTone closes the gap and jointly wins the 5G Availability award as their scores of 25.3% and 23.8% are a statistical tie. Our users on both winning operators connect to 5G over one fifth of the time, but the difference between all four operators has narrowed. Our Chunghwa and T Star users have seen their time connected to 5G increase slightly from 16.2% and 14.8% respectively to 19.7% and 19.6% in this report.
When we analyze the locations where our users experience 5G, there is a close contest between Chunghwa, FarEasTone and Taiwan Mobile with scores of 4.6, 4.7 and 5.0 on our ten point scale. The three operators jointly win Opensignal's first 5G Reach award in Taiwan because their scores are statistically tied. T Star lags on 5G Reach because our users see a score of 3.8. 5G Reach represents the proportion of locations where users experience 5G compared with all of the locations users visit.
The 5G market is moving extremely fast in Taiwan. 5G users are forecast to represent 30% of total mobile broadband subscribers by the end of 2021. The the government has allocated a special budget of NT$15.5 billion allocated to advance 5G deployment between 2021 and 2020.
Taiwan is uniquely placed for 5G because of the dynamism of its wider technology market. Strong 5G momentum among Taiwan's operators and mobile users should support Taiwan's technology industry succeed in the 5G era. TSMC, the major global foundry used to make the Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, and Mediatek chipsets used by the leading 5G smartphone makers, is based and headquartered in Taiwan. Additionally, mid-market focused chipset maker Mediatek, smartphone manufacturers Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) — used by Apple among others — as well as less known manufacturers such as Compal, Pegatron Quanta and Wistron are also all from Taiwan, as are consumer facing brands such as HTC and ROG gaming phone maker Asus.
In this report we see large increases in the 5G Download Speed experience by our users compared with the last 5G report in December on Taiwan's four major 5G operators. For the first time, we present several new Opensignal awards for 5G Games Experience, 5G Video Experience, 5G Voice App Experience and 5G Reach. In each category, we see tremendous competition as the pace of 5G market development and adoption increases across Taiwan.
| 5G Mobile Experience Awards Taiwan | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
June 2021,
Taiwan Report
|
C
Chunghwa
|
F
FarEasTone
|
T
T Star
|
T
Taiwan Mobile
|
5G Availability
| ||||
5G Reach
| ||||
5G Video Experience
| ||||
5G Games Experience
| ||||
5G Voice App Experience
| ||||
5G Download Speed
| ||||
5G Upload Speed
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
June 2021,
Taiwan
|
|---|---|
|
5G Download Speed
|
F
FarEasTone
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
June 2021, Taiwan
|
|---|---|
|
5G Availability
|
F
FarEasTone
T
Taiwan Mobile
|
|
5G Reach
|
C
Chunghwa
F
FarEasTone
T
Taiwan Mobile
|
|
5G Video Experience
|
C
Chunghwa
F
FarEasTone
|
|
5G Games Experience
|
C
Chunghwa
F
FarEasTone
|
|
5G Voice App Experience
|
C
Chunghwa
F
FarEasTone
|
|
5G Upload Speed
|
C
Chunghwa
F
FarEasTone
|
5G Availability represents the time Opensignal users spend with an active 5G connection. In the last report, Taiwan Mobile won the 5G Availability award outright but now we have a statistical tie between FarEasTone and Taiwan Mobile with scores of 23.8% and 25.3% respectively because of overlapping confidence intervals. However, the difference between all four operators is now close with under 6 points separating their scores.
Chunghwa, FarEasTone and Taiwan Mobile jointly win the 5G Reach award with statistically tied scores of 4.6, 4.7 and 5.0 respectively on the 10 point scale. Users saw 5G in approximately half of the locations they visited. However, our users experienced 5G in less locations using t Star than with the three leading operators with a score of 3.8.
5G Reach is a measure of how mobile users experienced the geographical extent of an operator's network. It analyzes the average proportion of locations where users were connected to a network out of all the locations those users have visited. In essence, Reach focuses on all of the locations that matter most to users, all the places where they live, work and travel.
Only a few points separate the four operators on 5G Video Experience. Chunghwa and FarEasTone jointly win the award both with scores of 85.2 on the 100 point scale. Our users also had an Excellent experience using 5G on T Star and Taiwan Mobile because both had scores over 80.
Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over mobile networks, using a method derived from an International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach. The score comes from detailed studies which have derived the relationship between real-world technical measurements — such as picture quality, video loading time and stall rate — and the perceived video experience as reported by real people.
One of the most important consumer applications of 5G will be mobile gaming because the designers of the 5G standards intend to improve the latency, or responsiveness, of mobile networks. We are still just at the start of the 5G era, and many of these improvements will only be felt in the years ahead as operators deploy newer versions of 5G, but gamers are playing multiplayer mobile games today.
Opensignal's Games Experience is a measure of how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator's network. Measured on a scale of 0-100, it analyzes how the multiplayer mobile Games Experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter to determine the impact on gameplay and the overall multiplayer Games Experience.
In the first Opensignal 5G Games Experience award in Taiwan, Chunghwa and FarEasTone jointly win the prize and place in the Excellent category (85 and above), beating Taiwan Mobile by a clear margin with a score that rates as Good (75<85). Our T Star users had the lowest 5G Games Experience score of 63.5 which fell into the Poor category (40<65), well behind the other operators' scores which were all over 80.
The new 5G Voice App Experience award also saw a tight contest. As with the other experiential awards — 5G Games Experience and 5G Video Experience — Chunghwa and FarEasTone shared the award, with Taiwan Mobile in third place and T Star users in fourth.
Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger etc. — 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.
The average 5G Download Speed experienced by our Taiwanese users on FarEasTone was extremely fast — 436.2 Mbps — and would have ranked above all international markets in Opensignal's recent 5G Global Benchmark. Second placed Chunghwa (381.8 Mbps) would have also have topped international markets in the same global benchmark but the lower speeds of our Taiwan Mobile and T Star users meant Taiwan was in second place overall in that benchmark.
5G Download Speeds are blisteringly fast in Taiwan. Since the last Opensignal report in December, our users have seen large increases in the average 5G Download Speeds they have experienced. Using FarEasTone 5G speeds have increased from 351.5 Mbps to 436.2 Mbps, with Chunghwa from 254.2 Mbps to 381.8 Mbps and with Taiwan Mobile from 236.5 Mbps to 257.7 Mbps in this report. However, our T Star users have seen 5G Download Speeds slip from 150.9 Mbps to 128.4 Mbps in this report.
On the two winning operators for 5G Download Speed our users see speeds over twice as fast as they do using Taiwan's other major 5G operators. Chunghwa and FarEasTone jointly win the 5G Upload Speed award with statistically tied scores of 57.8 Mbps and 59.5 Mbps respectively ahead of Taiwan Mobile's score of 23.7 Mbps and T Star on 18.0 Mbps.
Upload speed is significant because it is the key guide to how fast and convenient it is for mobile users to share large files, such as photos or videos, to social media services or as email attachments. Notably, while FarEasTone wins the 5G Download Speed award outright, users that care most about social media will find a similar sharing experience using Chunghwa as it ties with FarEasTone in the 5G Upload Speed Experience category.
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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