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Vodafone has broken the statistical tie that existed between it and Optus in our last report. This means that this time around, our Vodafone users spent the most time connected to 4G or better networks — 96.1%. This change occurred due to a 1.8 percentage point increase in Vodafone’s score since our last report, while Optus’ score was statistically unchanged. However, Telstra continues to hold the 4G Coverage Experience award — our measure of how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. 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.
Vodafone is the outright winner of the Upload Speed Experience award with a score of 10.1 Mbps, which was 0.4 Mbps (3.6%) faster than that of second-placed Telstra’s score of 9.7 Mbps. Optus is in third place with a score of 8.2 Mbps.
Our Telstra users yet again observed the fastest average download speeds (57 Mbps). The operator’s lead over its rivals has jumped — from a still impressive 9.1 Mbps (23.2%) over Vodafone in our last report to around 13 Mbps. Vodafone and Optus are statistically tied for second place. Telstra’s lead lengthened because its score increased by 9 Mbps but Optus and Vodafone’s scores rose by a smaller amount — 7.4 and 4.9 Mbps, respectively.
For the first time since we added it to our Australian mobile network experience reports, back in October 2019, Telstra has not won the Voice App Experience award. The honor instead goes to Vodafone and Optus as there is no statistically significant difference between the two operators’ scores. Telstra lost out on the award this time because its score dropped by 0.9 points since our previous report, while Optus and Vodafone’s scores remained statistically unchanged.
In our last report, all three operators were joint winners for the Games Experience award as our users did not observe a statistically significant difference between their scores. This time round, only Optus and Vodafone share the top spot. This change was mainly driven by a 1.7 point decline in Telstra’s score. Once again, our users across all three operators’ networks had a Fair (65-75) Games Experience. This means that they found the experience to be ‘average’. In most cases the game was responsive to the actions of the player with most users reporting that they felt like they had control over the game. The majority of players reported that they noticed a delay between their actions and the outcomes in the game.
While Telstra still holds our Download Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience awards with a strong grip, it has been less successful elsewhere in our awards table. For the first time, the Voice App Experience award has eluded its grasp — to be claimed by Vodafone and Optus instead — while Telstra no longer jointly wins the Games Experience award. These changes mean that Vodafone has the lion’s share of awards this time around, with three outright wins — including new wins for 4G Availability and Upload Speed Experience — and two joint wins compared to Telstra’s two solo victories. Meanwhile, Optus continues to be a joint winner for Games Experience and has swapped a joint win for 4G Availability for one in Voice App Experience.
In this report we've analyzed real-world data gathered in the 90 days starting July 1 and ending September 28, 2021 to see how Australia’s three national operators — Optus, Telstra and Vodafone — stack up. Our overall results include measurements from our users across all network technology generations (including 5G). In addition, this report also looks at the overall experience of 5G users — those with a 5G device and 5G subscription — across 3G, 4G and 5G networks along with the time they spent connected to each technology generation.
Also, we have published a companion report — Australia 5G Experience Report October 2021 — which analyzes the mobile experience only on 5G networks.
| Mobile Experience Awards Australia | |||
|---|---|---|---|
October 2021,
Australia Report
|
O
Optus
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T
Telstra
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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
| |||
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Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
October 2021,
Australia
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
V
Vodafone
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
T
Telstra
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
V
Vodafone
|
|
4G Availability
|
V
Vodafone
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
T
Telstra
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
October 2021, Australia
|
|---|---|
|
Games Experience
|
O
Optus
V
Vodafone
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
O
Optus
V
Vodafone
|
Vodafone is the outright winner of the Video Experience award for the second time in a row — this time with a score of 71.9 points on a 100 point scale. However, the operator’s score for the experience of our users when streaming mobile video fell by 3.7 points compared to its score of 75.6 points in our last report. This means that Vodafone has joined its rivals in the Very Good (65-75) category — down from the Excellent (75 or above) rating that it enjoyed last time around. However, Optus and Telstra’s scores have also declined, falling by 2.6-3.1 points to 70.8 and 71.1 points, respectively.
The combined effect of these changes has caused Optus and Telstra to statistically tie for second place and made Vodafone’s lead fall from the 1.4 points seen in our last report to around 0.9 points.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Optus
|
T
Telstra
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Video Experience – 5G Users
| 74.0 (± 0.55) | 74.3 (± 0.48) | 74.7 (± 0.74) |
| Video Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Optus
|
74 (± 0.55) |
|
T
Telstra
|
74 (± 0.48) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
75 (± 0.74) |
Vodafone and Optus are joint winners of the Games Experience award, due to a statistical tie between their scores. Telstra dropped out of contention due to a 1.7 point decline in its score. By contrast, in our previous report all three operators shared the top spot due to a three-way tie.
On all three operators’ networks our users had a Fair (65-75) Games Experience this time. This means that they found the experience to be ‘average’. In most cases the game was responsive to the actions of the player with most users reporting that they felt like they had control over the game. The majority of players reported that they noticed a delay between their actions and the outcomes in the game.
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Optus
|
T
Telstra
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Games Experience – 5G Users
| 74.9 (± 1.03) | 73.2 (± 0.77) | 76.1 (± 1.38) |
| Games Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Optus
|
75 (± 1.03) |
|
T
Telstra
|
73 (± 0.77) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
76 (± 1.38) |
Opensignal’s Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network. It 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. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.
Optus and Vodafone are joint winners of the Voice App Experience award, marking an end to Telstra’s impressive winning streak — the operator had previously won the award ever since we added it to our Australian mobile network experience reports, back in October 2019. The two operators share the award as there is no statistically significant difference between their scores. The award slipped from Telstra’s grasp due to a 0.9 point drop in its score since our previous report, while Optus and Vodafone’s scores were statistically unchanged.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Optus
|
T
Telstra
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Voice App Experience – 5G Users
| 80.7 (± 0.39) | 80.0 (± 0.31) | 80.8 (± 0.58) |
| Voice App Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Optus
|
81 (± 0.39) |
|
T
Telstra
|
80 (± 0.31) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
81 (± 0.58) |
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.
Telstra is once again the outright winner of the Download Speed Experience award — the operator has held the award single-handedly ever since our November 2018 report when it took the award from Vodafone. In addition, Telstra has extended its already significant lead over its rivals — from 9.1 Mbps (23.2%) in our last report to around 13 Mbps. This change was largely driven by a 9 Mbps increase in the average download speeds observed by our Telstra users.
Our Optus users saw the second-largest increase in their speeds — 7.4 Mbps versus the 4.9 Mbps observed by their counterparts on Vodafone. These changes have meant that the two operators are statistically tied for second-place, in contrast to our last report, when Vodafone placed second and Optus placed third.
Looking at the overall speeds reported by our 5G users across all generations of mobile technology, our Telstra 5G users saw the fastest overall speeds — 135.1 Mbps versus the 126.3 Mbps and 81.3 Mbps reported by our Optus and Vodafone 5G users, respectively.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Optus
|
T
Telstra
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Download Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 126.3 (± 4.48) | 135.1 (± 3.67) | 81.3 (± 2.94) |
| Download Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
O
Optus
|
126 (± 4.48) |
|
T
Telstra
|
135 (± 3.67) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
81 (± 2.94) |
Vodafone is the outright winner of the Upload Speed Experience award due to its score of 10.1 Mbps, which was 0.4 Mbps (3.6%) faster than that of second-placed Telstra’s score of 9.7 Mbps. Optus is in third place with a score of 8.2 Mbps.
When we analyzed the overall upload speeds of our 5G users, the fastest overall speeds were reported by our Telstra 5G users — 12.1 Mbps — with our 5G users observing no statistically significant difference between Optus and Vodafone’s scores.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Optus
|
T
Telstra
|
V
Vodafone
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 10.5 (± 0.32) | 12.1 (± 0.27) | 10.2 (± 0.32) |
| Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
O
Optus
|
11 (± 0.32) |
|
T
Telstra
|
12 (± 0.27) |
|
V
Vodafone
|
10 (± 0.32) |
Vodafone has broken the statistical tie that existed between it and Optus in our last report, making it the outright winner of the 4G Availability award. Our Vodafone users spent the most time connected to 4G or better networks — 96.1%, up by 1.8 percentage points since our last report. This resulted in Vodafone’s solo victory as Optus’ score was statistically unchanged. However, Telstra continues to hold the 4G Coverage Experience award — our measure of how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network.
There has been little movement since our previous report in terms of 4G Coverage Experience. Telstra remains the outright winner with an unchanged score of 9.7 points on a scale of 0-10, while Optus and Vodafone’s scores have both increased by 0.1 points to 9.3 and 8.1, respectively. This lack of change is to be expected given that all three operators have launched 5G networks and are focusing on rolling out the latest generation of mobile network technology.
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 simple terms, 4G Coverage Experience measures the mobile coverage experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users — i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel. It considers all the areas that Opensignal users visit, the portion of locations that 4G is available to them, and locations that more users visit have higher importance to them.
We have delved into the overall mobile experience of our users in four metropolitan areas: Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. In addition,in our companion report, we have analyzed the experience of our users when connected to 5G in these cities.
Telstra has reaped the largest share of city-level awards, picking up 10 awards outright of a possible 24 along with 11 joint wins. Vodafone picked up two outright wins and 12 shared victories, while Optus has not won any city awards outright but has five joint wins.
Our Telstra users had the best experience when streaming mobile video in Brisbane and Sydney and the operator tied for first place with Vodafone in Melbourne. All three operators share the award in Perth. Our Telstra users in Brisbane were the only ones to have an Excellent (75 or above) Video Experience — by the narrowest of margins, given the operator’s score of 75 points. In all the combinations of cities and operators, our users observed a Very Good (65-75) Video Experience
Telstra performed similarly on Games Experience, again racking up outright wins in Brisbane and Sydney, but it only tied in Perth alongside Vodafone. Meanwhile Vodafone and Optus share first place in Melbourne. Our users had a Good (75-85) Games Experience in Melbourne and Sydney across all three operators, dropping to Fair (65-75) in Perth. Our Telstra users were the only ones to report a Good experience in Brisbane with Vodafone and Optus narrowly placing in the Fair category instead.
There is less of a divide between the operators on Voice Experience, with our users observing no statistical difference in their experience between the three operators in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. However, Telstra achieved an outright win in Sydney with a score of 81.2 points on a 100 point scale.
Our Telstra users observed the fastest average download speeds in all four cities. Even the operator’s lowest score — 64.3 Mbps in Perth — was higher than the fastest speeds seen by our Optus and Vodafone users in any of the cities. Telstra’s highest score was in Brisbane — a remarkable 81.8 Mbps. Our Vodafone users saw their fastest speeds in Melbourne (54.1 Mbps) and there was no statistically significant difference between Optus users’ scores in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, which were in the 51.1-51.5 Mbps range, while the operator achieved a lower score of 47.4 Mbps in Perth.
Vodafone and Telstra have performed similarly on Upload Speed Experience — both operators win an award outright (Vodafone in Perth and Telstra in Sydney) and are joint winners in Brisbane and Melbourne. Telstra’s scores ranged between 12.1 Mbps in Brisbane and 9.3 Mbps in Perth. Vodafone’s were between 11.8 Mbps in Brisbane and 9.8 Mbps in Sydney, while Optus’ ranged from 9.1 Mbps in Sydney to 6.9 Mbps in Brisbane.
Vodafone is the only operator to win a city 4G Availability award outright — doing so in Brisbane. In the other three cities, Telstra and Vodafone are statistically tied for first place. Unlike its rivals, all of Vodafone’s scores were above 96% and it pushed past the 97% mark in Brisbane and Sydney.
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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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