Introduction
Since our last report
we see a number of changes in the awards table with all four operators vying for position. TDC slipped back on Upload Speed Experience and 4G Availability but won the most awards overall. 3 won one award outright and jointly won another, while Telenor jointly won three awards and Telia one.
A major new 5G spectrum auction completed in April. Wireless spectrum provides capacity which is an essential ingredient for operators to offer a high-quality mobile experience. In simple terms, the more spectrum available to an operator, the more data traffic and more users they can support or they can offer faster speeds and a better video and gaming experience to the same number of users.
Spectrum availability has held back 5G rollouts in Denmark. Operators launched 5G in the latter part of 2020, over a year after the leading European operators in Germany and the UK launched 5G services. As part of this auction, Danish operators have finally secured access to the critical 3.5 GHz band that has enabled fast 5G speeds in other countries: TDC secured 130 MHz, 3 Denmark 120 MHz, and the Telia-Telenor joint venture 140 MHz in that band.
However, while Denmark has been slow to license 3.5 GHz, it is early with 26 GHz mmWave spectrum licensing. Denmark is the fourth EU member state to have licensed it. To date, mmWave 5G has mainly been deployed in the U.S. where Opensignal has seen mmWave 5G offers extremely fast speeds, very high capacity, but more limited reach than 5G deployed on lower spectrum bands.
As Denmark's operators accelerate their 5G offerings, Opensignal will be analyzing how 5G boosts the mobile experience of Danish users. In this report 5G measurements contribute to the overall scores included. The results here are based on measurements collected across a 90 day period between April 1 and June 29, 2021.