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In our first report on 5G Experience in the United Arab Emirates, du wins our 5G Download Speed award, as our users on this network enjoyed the fastest average 5G download speeds of 325.3 Mbps. Etisalat places second with a score of 284.1 Mbps, which was 41.2 Mbps behind the victorious du.
du and Etisalat share the 5G Video Experience award as they have locked into a statistical draw. Both operators place in the Excellent category, having scored in excess of 75 points. 5G Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over operators’ 5G networks.
Our users on Etisalat had the best 5G Games Experience, as the operator scored 77.6 points, ahead of du which scored 63.8 points. Similarly, Etisalat also wins 5G Voice App Experience with a score of 81.4 points, followed by du at 77.5 points. Opensignal’s 5G Games Experience metric is a measure of how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s 5G network, while 5G Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services.
du is the first operator to win the 5G Availability award in the United Arab Emirates — our users spent 17.3% of their time with an active 5G connection using du, and that was almost twice the amount of time our Etisalat users had an active 5G connection. In fact, Etisalat places second with a score of 9.5%. Opensignal’s 5G Availability shows the proportion of time Opensignal users with a 5G device and subscription had a 5G connection.
Contrary to what we observed on 5G Download Speed, Etisalat wins the 5G Upload Speed award with the highest score of 28 Mbps. du, on the other hand, scored 21.9 Mbps in 5G Upload Speed — 6.1 Mbps slower than Etisalat. Upload speed is an important measure that has different benefits for users compared with download speed. For example, when users share photos or videos to social media sites or when they send documents by email they rely on the average upload speed.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) places among the global 5G leaders in multiple of our 5G categories. In our latest benchmark of the global 5G Experience we observed the UAE claim the fourth position in 5G Download Speed, as it was one of only four markets where our users experienced average 5G download speeds above 300 Mbps. The UAE also placed 8th in 5G Peak Download Speed, with a score of 703.7 Mbps, while placing 10th in 5G Upload Speed having scored 25.7 Mbps. Besides, the UAE also featured among the top 15 markets globally for 5G Video Experience, 5G Availability and 5G Reach.
In Opensignal’s first 5G Experience report on the United Arab Emirates, du and Etisalat both win multiple awards. Etisalat wins 5G Games Experience, 5G Voice App Experience and 5G Upload Speed, while du wins 5G Download Speed and 5G Availability, which means that du users were able to connect to 5G more frequently than those on its competitor’s network. The two operators share the win in 5G Video Experience and they both place in the Excellent (75 or above) category.
Etisalat and du started selling 5G-capable handsets between May and June 2019 and have continued rolling out their 5G networks since then. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the United Arab Emirates last year allocated 24-27GHz millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum to Etisalat and du looking to make the UAE the first country in the Middle East with a live mmWave 5G network. However, du and rival Etisalat launched their existing 5G services on 3.5 GHz spectrum and this use of spectrum explains the greatly improved 5G experience compared with older 4G network technology.
In this report, we've analyzed the 5G experience of our users gathered in the 90 day period starting June 1, 2021, and ending August 29, 2021, to see how du and Etisalat measure up.
| 5G Mobile Experience Awards United Arab Emirates | ||
|---|---|---|
September 2021,
United Arab Emirates Report
|
d
du
|
E
Etisalat
|
5G Video Experience
| ||
5G Games Experience
| ||
5G Voice App Experience
| ||
5G Download Speed
| ||
5G Availability
| ||
5G Upload Speed
| ||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
September 2021,
United Arab Emirates
|
|---|---|
|
5G Games Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
5G Voice App Experience
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
5G Download Speed
|
d
du
|
|
5G Availability
|
d
du
|
|
5G Upload Speed
|
E
Etisalat
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
September 2021, United Arab Emirates
|
|---|---|
|
5G Video Experience
|
d
du
E
Etisalat
|
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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