Switzerland

Swisscom won our 5G Availability award in our previous report. This time, however, Sunrise saw an impressive increase of 6.8 percentage points in its score, up to 18.2%. As a result, Sunrise wins this award outright, with a 5.5 percentage lead over now second-placed Swisscom. This score means that our 5G users on Sunrise’s network spent 18.2% of their time, on average, connected to 5G. This was 1.4 times more than on Swisscom’s network and nearly 3.2 times more than on Salt’s network, which lagged behind with a score of 5.8%. Both Swisscom and Salt’s 5G Availability scores have not changed statistically insignificant changes in their 5G Availability scores since our previous report.

Opensignal's 5G Availability compares the amount of time 5G users spent with an active 5G connection. The higher the 5G Availability percentage, the more time users on a network were actually connected to 5G.

5G Reach was another measure of the extent of 5G networks that Swisscom solely claimed in our previous report. However, thanks to a remarkable increase of 1.9 points (58.2%) in Sunrise’s score, it forced a statistical tie against Swisscom for this award. This led to a joint victory for both operators. Salt also saw an increase of 0.6 points, which brought its score up to 2.2 points — 2.9-3.2 points behind both joint winners. This means our users saw 5G in a lower share of locations using Salt’s network compared with its competitors.

5G Reach represents the proportion of locations where 5G users have connected to 5G out of all the locations those users have visited, on a scale of 0-10. This measure complements our 5G Availability metric which represents the proportion of time 5G users spend connected to 5G.

Salt and Sunrise remained locked in a statistical tie for the 5G Video Experience award, which means both are joint winners for the second time in a row. Only 1.7 points on a 100-point scale separated all three operators, as Swisscom improved its score by 2.8 points (3.6%) and crossed the 80 point threshold. All Swiss mobile operators placed in the Excellent (75 or above) category, meaning fast loading times and almost non-existent stalling for our users.

Opensignal’s 5G Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's 5G network. 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 5G video experience, we are directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using this ITU-based 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.

After a 1.9-point (2.3%) increase in its score, Swisscom forced a statistical tie against the previous joint winners Salt and Sunrise in 5G Games Experience. This means all three operators are now crowned as joint winners of the 5G Games Experience award. The small changes in Salt and Sunrise’s scores since our last report are not statistically significant. All three Swiss operators were recognised as 5G Global Leaders for 5G Games Experience in our 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2021 report, which shows that the quality of the Swiss gaming experience is at a world-class level.

Our 5G Games Experience metric measures real-world mobile network conditions to assess the mobile multiplayer games experience perceived by our users on different 5G networks. It analyzes how the multiplayer mobile Games Experience is affected by mobile network conditions including UDP latency, packet loss and jitter. Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games — to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions — such as Battle Royale and MOBA games of which PUBG, Fortnite and Arena of Valor are examples.

Just like in our previous report, Salt and Sunrise found themselves in a statistical tie again and thus share the 5G Voice App Experience award — but this time, with identical scores of 83.2 points. As Swisscom’s score dropped by 0.8 points, the gap between it and both leaders increased to 2.6 points. All Swiss operators placed in the Good category (80-87), meaning many users were satisfied but some may have experienced minor quality impairments.

Opensignal's 5G Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience on 5G networks for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger. — using a model derived from the International 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.

Sunrise successfully defended the 5G Download Speed award it won in our first report. Previously, the operator clocked in at average 5G download speeds just one Mbps shy of the 200 Mbps milestone. However, as our users on Sunrise’s networks saw their average 5G download speeds soar by 14.8 Mbps (7.4%) — the most out of all three operators — Sunrise passed the 200 Mbps threshold with a impressive score of 213.8 Mbps. Sunrise is one of our 5G Global Leaders in the 5G Download Speed category, as seen in our 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2021 report.

Salt and Swisscom average 5G speeds increased by 6.4 Mbps and 7.7 Mbps respectively. This helped Sunrise to widen its lead to 42.8 Mbps ahead of second-placed Swisscom and 59.6 Mbps over Salt. With Salt and Swisscom’s average 5G download speeds jumping to 154.3 and 171.1 Mbps respectively, our users on all mobile networks in Switzerland saw their average 5G download speeds exceed 150 Mbps.

Sunrise wins the 5G Upload Speed award for the second report in a row, this time with a score of 38.9 Mbps. However, as Sunrise’s average 5G upload speeds remained statistically unchanged, while our users on Swisscom saw a boost in their average 5G upload speeds of 2.3 Mbps (6.8%), Sunrise’s lead over second-placed Swisscom has more than halved, dropping to 2.5 Mbps.

Our users on all Swiss mobile operators continue to experience their average 5G upload speeds above the impressive 30 Mbps mark. This is one of the best results in the world, as Opensignal recognised all three Swiss operators as 5G Global Leaders for 5G Upload Speed in our 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2021 report. High upload speeds are crucial for users, they are becoming more vital, as mobile internet trends move away from downloading content to creating content and supporting real-time communications services.