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4G Availability indicates the average proportion of time Opensignal users spend with a 4G or better connection on each operator's network. TIM holds firmly onto the 4G Availability award with a score of 89.1% — 6.5 percentage points ahead of second-placed Vivo, down from the 8.7 percentage point margin in the previous report. TIM and Vivo were the only operators in Brazil where our users were connected to 4G or better services more than 80% of the time.
Once again, Claro wins both the Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience awards in Brazil. Our users on Claro’s network enjoyed average download speeds of 23.4 Mbps — an increase of 0.8 Mbps (3.4%) compared to the previous report. Claro remains the only operator in Brazil with its users seeing average download speeds above the 20 Mbps milestone.
Similarly to Download Speed Experience, our users in Brazil saw the fastest average upload speeds on Claro’s network, clocking in at 8.6 Mbps — which means a 0.7 Mbps boost since the last report. Claro’s score was 1.5 Mbps faster than second-placed Vivo and 1.6 Mbps than third-place TIM. Oi lagged behind its competitors with a score of 4.9 Mbps.
Claro successfully defended the Games and Voice App Experience awards that it won outright in the last report. The operator widened its lead over second-placed TIM in both categories, by 3.1 and 0.6 points respectively, on a 100-point scale.
In the latest Opensignal report on mobile network experience in Brazil, we see Claro continue to win the most awards. The operator wins four awards outright, increasing its leads over second-placed competitors in all of these categories. TIM remains the sole winner of the 4G Availability award, while Vivo and Oi did not win any awards this time around.
Brazil's regulator Anatel utilised data from the previous report, drawing on Opensignal insights to inform its annual report on the state of mobile in Brazil.
Anatel has completed the long-awaited multi-band 5G spectrum auction in November 2021, selling 85% of available frequencies. The tender raised a total of BRL 47.2 billion ($8.5 billion) from operators’ bids for national licenses in the 700 MHz, 2.3 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands — and for regional licenses in the 3.5 GHz band. As bidders did not purchase all blocks in the 26 GHz band — the government is considering organizing another spectrum tender to assign the unsold frequencies in this band.
All three national operators — Claro, Vivo and TIM — secured national spectrum licences, while also winning some regional concessions alongside with regional players like Algar or Sercomtel or several new entrants like Brisanet or Winity. Algar and Claro launched 5G services in December 2021, using their newly acquired 2.3 GHz frequencies — the 3.5GHz band will require cleaning for interference before 5G use. This new spectrum should help the operators to significantly improve the 5G experience in Brazil. With even more new spectrum capacity now being deployed for 5G usage, 5G will continue to raise the overall experience of users throughout 2022. For this report we have paused the Video Experience award while we refine the category to better reflect the impact of 5G and carriers’ 5G plans on mobile video streaming.
In November 2021, General Superintendence has approved the sale of Oi’s mobile unit to TIM, Vivo and Claro — spectrum, cell sites and customer base — provided the acquisitive parties adopt measures to mitigate competitive risks. The latter include spectrum rental agreements in municipalities with less than 100,000 inhabitants, roaming agreements with regional players and increased wholesale access for MVNOs. The governmental body negotiated the agreement with the operators involved in the sale. General Superintendence has passed the decision to the Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE) for review — which in October 2021 requested another 90 days to analyse the transaction. This means, Oi’s mobile unit sale is unlikely to be finalized until February 2022.
Our results in this report are based on measurements collected across all major mobile operators in Brazil – Claro, Oi, TIM and Vivo – over the period of 90 days between September 1 and November 29, 2021, to see how they fared. 5G measurements contributed to the overall scores.
| Mobile Experience Awards Brazil | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
January 2022,
Brazil Report
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C
Claro
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O
Oi
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T
TIM
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V
Vivo
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Games Experience
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Voice App Experience
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Download Speed Experience
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Upload Speed Experience
| ||||
4G Availability
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
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January 2022,
Brazil
|
|---|---|
|
Games Experience
|
C
Claro
|
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Voice App Experience
|
C
Claro
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
C
Claro
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
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C
Claro
|
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4G Availability
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T
TIM
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Claro successfully defended its Games Experience award, with a score of 63.6 points — 8.7 points ahead of second-placed TIM. The operator widened its lead over second-placed TIM from 5.7 to 8.7 points, compared to the last report. Vivo placed third with a score of 47.5 points and Oi lagged behind, 7.9 points behind Vivo.
Opensignal’s Games Experience is a measure of how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-100, it analyzes how the multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter.
On top of winning the Games Experience award outright, Claro also solely claims the Voice App Experience award, with a score of 78.1 points. Similar to Games Experience, Claro increased its lead over runner-up TIM from 3.5 to 4.1 points, compared to our last report. Claro and TIM achieved an Acceptable (74<80) rating, which means listeners were generally able to comprehend without repetition, but some users experienced perceptible call quality impairments.
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 an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 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.
Our users on Claro’s network enjoyed the fastest average download speeds in Brazil, of 23.4 Mbps — an increase of 0.8 Mbps (3.4%) compared to our previous report. It was the biggest boost seen across all of the Brazilian operators — as a result, Claro increased its lead over second-place Vivo from 5.1 to 5.7 Mbps. Claro remains the only operator in Brazil with our users experiencing average download speeds above the 20 Mbps mark.
Claro wins outright both of the speed experience awards. In the Upload Speed Experience award, Claro’s score clocked in at 8.6 Mbps — 1.5 Mbps ahead of second-placed Vivo and 1.6 Mbps ahead of third-place TIM. Our users on these three operators’ networks saw boosts in their average upload speeds ranging between 0.6 and 0.7 Mbps. At the same time, Oi lagged behind its competitors with a score of 4.9 Mbps.
As mobile internet trends move away from downloading content to creating content and supporting real-time communications services, upload speeds are becoming more vital and new technologies are emerging that boost upstream capacity.
With a score of 89.1%, TIM keeps the 4G Availability award in a firm grip. Our users on TIM’s network spent 89.1% of their time connected to 4G or better services — which is 6.5 percentage points more than the time our users on second-placed Vivo were connected. However, Vivo whittled away on TIM’s lead since the last report and brought the gap down from the 8.7 percentage point margin in the last report. TIM and Vivo’s networks were the only ones in Brazil on which our users connected to 4G or better services more than 80% of the time — while in the case of Oi, our users connected to 4G or better services less than 70% of the time.
Opensignal’s 4G Availability shows the average proportion of time that our users spend with a 4G or better connection on each operator's network.
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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