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Our users in Turkey enjoyed the best mobile Gaming Experience when connected to Türk Telekom’s network. The operator wins our award with a score of 65 points (on a 100 point) — which was 4.1 points higher than second-placed Vodafone and 6.8 points higher than Turkcell. Opensignal’s Games Experience quantifies the experience of real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network. It represents the experience of popular genres of mobile games such as battle royale games like COD mobile or Garena FreeFire and MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) titles like Arena of Valor.
Our Turkcell users observed the fastest overall download speeds of 27.1 Mbps — an increase of 1.4 Mbps since our last report. Meanwhile, our Türk Telekom users reported a greater increase of 1.8 Mbps with speeds averaging 25 Mbps. As a result, Turkcell’s lead has diminished by 0.4 Mbps — from 2.4 Mbps to 2 Mbps. Vodafone continues to remain last-placed, with our users reporting Download Speed Experience of 15.2 Mbps.
Türk Telekom continues to lead in our measure of the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — on mobile apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger. The operator wins our Voice App Experience award with a score of 80.8 points (out of 100), while Vodafone is close behind with 79.4 points. Our users on Türk Telekom’s network saw a one-point improvement since the last report, which pushed its rating up from Acceptable to Good. Meanwhile, Turkcell’s score declined by 0.4 points to 77.7 points, and continues to place in the Acceptable category like Vodafone.
Turkcell is now the sole winner of our Upload Speed Experience award after statistically tying for first place with Türk Telekom in our last report. This occurred due to the 0.5 Mbps increase observed by our Turkcell users and no change in Türk Telekom’s Upload Experience score since the previous report. As a result, Turkcell now has a lead of 0.7 Mbps over Türk Telekom’s score of 9 Mbps.
Turkcell is once again the winner of the Video Experience award, this time with a score of 72.4 points (on a 100-point scale). However, Türk Telekom is hard on its heels – the operator’s score (71.5 points) was 0.8 points lower than that of Turkcell – down from the lead of 2.8 points that Turkcell had in our last report. This resulted from a 0.3 point decline observed by Turkcell users and an improvement of 1.6 points reported by our Türk Telekom users. Meanwhile, Vodafone’s score fell by 0.5 points to 67.8 points. That said, all three operators’ scores continue to place in the Very Good category (65-75).
Our Turkish users reported improvements in 4G Availability across the board. Our Türk Telekom users reported the most significant improvement of three percentage points since the last report, followed by increases of two percentage points and 1.3 percentage points on Vodafone and Turkcell’s networks, respectively. That said, Vodafone held on to our 4G Availability award with a score of 92.9 points and extended its lead over Turkcell by 0.7 percentage points — from 2.8 to 3.4 percentage points — compared to our last report.
In this report, we've analyzed our data gathered in the 90 day period starting on February 1, 2021, and ending on May 1, 2021, to compare the mobile network experience of Turkey’s three national operators: Turkcell, Türk Telekom and Vodafone. We further delved deeper into Turkey’s seven regions, comparing the results of these three operators.
A quick look at our latest award table shows that Turkcell remains the dominant operator when it comes to mobile network experience in Turkey. Turkcell wins four out of seven of our awards outright. While Turkcell continues to lead in 4G Coverage Experience, Video Experience and Download Speed Experience, the operator also now wins the Upload Speed Experience award, while in the last report it tied with Türk Telekom.
However, Vodafone held on to the 4G Availability award. In other award categories, Vodafone was less successful: the operator’s scores ranked in the last position in three out of seven award categories — Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience and Video Experience.
Turkey plans to auction the 5G spectrum in 2022 and preparing their existing networks for 5G launches is a key focus for the country's operators right now. However, 4G continues to play a vital role because that’s the network that consumers spend most of their time connected to. Also, strong 4G networks will pave the road for a smoother transition to next-generation 5G networks.
| Mobile Experience Awards Turkey | |||
|---|---|---|---|
June 2021,
Turkey Report
|
T
Turkcell
|
T
Türk Telekom
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V
Vodafone
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Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
June 2021,
Turkey
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
T
Turkcell
|
|
Games Experience
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
T
Turkcell
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
T
Turkcell
|
|
4G Availability
|
V
Vodafone
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
T
Turkcell
|
Turkcell continues to lead on Video Experience in Turkey. The operator is the winner of our Video Experience award and placed in the Very Good category with a score of 72.4 points (on a scale of 0-100) — a slight decline of 0.3 points since our last report. Our users on Vodafone also reported a decrease of 0.5 points, while their Türk Telekom counterparts saw an improvement of 1.6 points. As a result, Türk Telekom has reduced the gap with Turkcell from 2.8 points seen in the last report to 0.8 points this time. Türk Telekom and Vodafone also placed in the Very Good category with scores of 71.5 and 67.8 points, respectively.
Looking solely at 4G Video Experience, all three operators maintained Very Good ratings; however, their scores declined between 0.4 to 1.3 points since the last report. In contrast, the 3G Video Experience of our users has improved across the board. They reported the greatest improvement of 5.3 points on Türk Telekom’s network, followed by Vodafone and Turkcell — 2.8 and 0.6 points, respectively.
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 from 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 on 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 |
T
Turkcell
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Video Experience
| 74.3 (± 0.27) | 74.3 (± 0.39) | 69.9 (± 0.40) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 64.7 (± 0.95) | 64.2 (± 1.10) | 52.9 (± 1.75) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Turkcell
|
74 (± 0.27) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
74 (± 0.39) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
70 (± 0.40) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Turkcell
|
65 (± 0.95) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
64 (± 1.10) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
53 (± 1.75) |
Türk Telekom is the new winner of mobile Games Experience in Turkey. Its score of 65 points is an impressive 4.1 points above that of second-placed Vodafone, making Türk Telekom the only operator to place in the Fair Games Experience category. Meanwhile, Vodafone and Turkcell placed in the Poor category with a score of 60.9 points and 58.2 points, respectively.
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Turkcell
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Games Experience
| 63.3 (± 0.65) | 71.4 (± 0.52) | 66.4 (± 0.59) |
|
3G Games Experience
| 40.4 (± 0.85) | 47.8 (± 1.43) | 35.8 (± 0.36) |
| 4G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Turkcell
|
63 (± 0.65) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
71 (± 0.52) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
66 (± 0.59) |
| 3G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Turkcell
|
40 (± 0.85) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
48 (± 1.43) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
36 (± 0.36) |
The Games Experience metric quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer 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. Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games — such as Fortnite, Garena Freefire, and PUBG — played around the world.
Türk Telekom holds on to our Voice App Experience award with a score of 80.8 points. The operator’s lead over its peers on this measure has increased slightly since our last report, rising by 0.9 points to 1.4 points above second-placed Vodafone’s score of 79.4 points (on a 100-point scale). This is due to a one-point rise reported by our Türk Telekom users — enough to upgrade Türk Telekom’s Voice App Experience rating from Acceptable to Good. On the other hand, Vodafone and Turkcell continue to place in the Acceptable category — the former increased its score by 0.1 points, while the latter’s score fell by 0.4 points from 78.1 to 77.7 since our last report.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Turkcell
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 78.9 (± 0.25) | 82.3 (± 0.22) | 80.7 (± 0.23) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 72.7 (± 0.64) | 77.1 (± 0.53) | 70.6 (± 0.78) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Turkcell
|
79 (± 0.25) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
82 (± 0.22) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
81 (± 0.23) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
T
Turkcell
|
73 (± 0.64) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
77 (± 0.53) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
71 (± 0.78) |
A Good Voice App Experience means that many users were satisfied, although some may have experienced minor quality impairments such as clicking sounds or distortion. 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.
Turkcell has retained the top spot on Download Speed Experience for the third time in a row as our users observed overall download speeds of 27.1 Mbps. However, its lead over Türk Telekom has shrunk once again — down from 2.4 Mbps seen in our previous report to 2 Mbps this time. This is because average download speeds observed by our Türk Telekom users rose by 1.8 Mbps to 25 Mbps, compared to the 1.4 Mbps rise seen by our Turkcell users. On the other hand, Vodafone users saw their speeds decline by 1.3 Mbps to 15.2 Mbps — 39.5% to 44% slower than the speeds observed by our users on the other two networks.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Turkcell
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Download Speed
| 31.4 (± 0.36) | 30.7 (± 0.43) | 16.4 (± 0.21) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 9.8 (± 0.21) | 10.1 (± 0.20) | 6.5 (± 0.21) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Turkcell
|
31 (± 0.36) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
31 (± 0.43) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
16 (± 0.21) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Turkcell
|
10 (± 0.21) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
10 (± 0.20) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
7 (± 0.21) |
When we break down Download Speed Experience by mobile technology generation, Turkcell and Türk Telekom are statistically tied on 4G Download Speed withs speeds averaging 31.4 Mbps and 30.7 Mbps, respectively.
Turkcell has broken the statistical tie that existed between it and Türk Telekom in our last report to win our Upload Speed Experience award outright. This was due to an increase of 0.5 Mbps observed by our Turkcell users, as our Türk Telekom users have seen no change in their average upload speeds since our last report. Meanwhile, our Vodafone users saw their speeds decline by 0.5 Mbps.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
T
Turkcell
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 11.7 (± 0.16) | 11.6 (± 0.21) | 8.1 (± 0.11) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.8 (± 0.05) | 2.2 (± 0.05) | 2.0 (± 0.12) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Turkcell
|
12 (± 0.16) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
12 (± 0.21) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
8 (± 0.11) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
T
Turkcell
|
2 (± 0.05) |
|
T
Türk Telekom
|
2 (± 0.05) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
2 (± 0.12) |
Upload speeds are becoming increasingly important in mobile services, with changing usage patterns and consumption habits. 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.
While all three operator’s scores have risen since our last report, Vodafone continues to be the only operator with a 4G Availability score above the 90% mark. The operator won our 4G Availability award with a score of 92.9 points — an improvement of two percentage points since our last report. Turkcell’s score increased by 1.3 percentage points to 89.5%, while Türk Telekom’s score rose by a notable three percentage points to 85.7%
Little has changed since our last report in terms of 4G Coverage Experience with Turkcell occupying first place. The operator’s score increased slightly by 0.2 points to 6.7 points. Meanwhile, Türk Telekom and Vodafone’s scores both increased by 0.1 points to 5.1 and 6.2 points, respectively.
Opensignal’s 4G Coverage Experience 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.
In our regional analysis, we assessed how the mobile network experience varies across seven different regions of Turkey: Aegean, Mediterranean, Marmara, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia.
Like our national results, Türk Telekom reigned supreme in Games Experience at a regional level. The operator wins in five regions outright and is a joint winner with Vodafone in the Black Sea and Marmara regions. Marmara was the only region where users observed a Fair Games Experience on all three networks.
In Video Experience, the national winner Turkcell wins outright in three regions — Aegean, Black Sea and Southeastern Anatolia — and scoops three joint wins with Türk Telekom in Central Anatolia, Marmara and Mediterranean. Türk Telekom also bags an outright victory in Eastern Anatolia. Our users across all seven regions enjoyed a Very Good Experience across all three networks, except Southeastern Anatolia, where Vodafone placed in the Good category with a score of 60.9 points.
Türk Telekom dominates the regional Voice App Experience; the operator comes top for this measure of mobile network experience in five regions and draws for first place with Vodafone in the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions. Our Türk Telekom users enjoyed a Good Voice App Experience in six out of seven regions.
Turning to our speed metrics, we saw something of a two-horse race between Turkcell and Türk Telekom. In regional Download Speed Experience Turkcell wins outright in Aegean, Central Anatolia and Marmara, while Türk Telekom wins outright in Southeastern Anatolia and Mediterranean. And in the remaining two regions, both operators are in a dead-heat for first place. In Upload Speed Experience, Türk Telekom wins outright in the Mediterranean, while its rival Turkcell wins outright in Black Sea, Central Anatolia and Marmara. Turkcell and Türk Telekom take joint wins in the remaining regions while also sharing the win with Vodafone in Eastern Anatolia.
The regional average download speeds varied between 32.6 Mbps — seen by our Turkcell users in the Marmara region— and 11.1 Mbps — reported by our Vodafone users in Eastern Anatolia. Meanwhile, the regional average upload speeds varied between 12.2 Mbps — seen by our Turkcell users in the Marmara region — and 5.8 Mbps — reported by those on Vodafone in Southeastern Anatolia.
In our analysis of regional 4G Availability, Vodafone takes the lead position in five regions and further ties with Turkcell for the first place in the Aegean and the Black Sea regions. The 4G Availability of our Vodafone users ranged between 90.2% in the Black Sea region to 94% in the Mediterranean region.
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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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