Opensignal’s Business Mobile Network Experience Reports are the definitive independent view of the true mobile network experience in business locations
NTT DoCoMo is the outright winner of the Download Speed Business Experience award with a score of 46.3 Mbps. The operator commanded a lead of 3.5 Mbps over second-placed au, as our users in business locations on the latter’s network reported average speeds of 42.7 Mbps, SoftBank and Rakuten were further behind with scores of 38.4 Mbps and 20.2 Mbps, respectively. Download Speed Business Experience matters most to companies with employees that frequently need to download large files quickly and while on the move.
Opensignal’s users in business locations observed their fastest average upload speeds when using Rakuten’s network. The operator clocked up an impressive 12.2 Mbps, 3.1 Mbps faster than second-placed SoftBank’s score of 9.1 Mbps. NTT DoCoMo and au followed behind, with scores of 8.3 Mbps and 7.3 Mbps, respectively. Upload speeds are particularly important to businesses with employees that spend a lot of time in the field and need to regularly transfer large images and videos to the cloud.
The winner of the Availability Business Experience award is au, thanks to its score of 99.7%. This means that our users in business locations on its network spent 99.7% of their time connected to either 4G or 5G. Rakuten is in second place with a score of 99.3%, followed by NTT DoCoMo with 98.9% and SoftBank with 97.8%. Given the superior connectivity typically enjoyed by users on 4G and 5G connections compared to those seen using legacy network technologies, Availability Business Experience is an important measure.
SoftBank is the outright winner of the Voice App Business Experience award with a score of 82.8 points on a 100 point scale. However, all four operators placed in the Good (80-87) category. This means that many users in business locations were satisfied but some experienced minor quality impairments, such as clicking sounds or distortion. Opensignal’s Voice App Business Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — as observed by users in business locations.
Due to a two-way statistical tie, NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank are joint winners of the Group Video Calling Business Experience award. In third place is au with a score of 80 points, while Rakuten followed some way behind with a score of 59 points. Group video calls have become more important to businesses due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift to remote working. Opensignal’s methodology takes into account the fact that the quality of users in business locations’ experience is heavily influenced by that of the user with the worst experience.
