Iraq

Asiacell is the outright winner of the Video Experience award. The operator wins with a score of 59.4 points on a 100 point scale, making it the only operator to place in the Good (55<65) category. Korek and Zain both placed in the Fair (40<55) category with statistically tied scores of 49.9 and 48.2 points, respectively.

Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's networks. The metric is derived from an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 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 video experience, we are directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using this ITU 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.

Our Iraqi users did not see any statistical differences in their experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games between the country’s three operators. As a result, Asiacell, Korek and Zain are joint winners of the Games Experience award with scores between 37.6 and 39.2 points on a 100 point scale.

Games Experience measures 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 experience when playing multiplayer mobile games is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter.

Asiacell, Korek and Zain share Opensignal’s inaugural Iraqi Voice App Experience award, as our users reported a three-way statistical tie between the operators’ scores, which ranged between 71.8 and 75.2 points on a 100 point scale.

Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — 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.

Asiacell is the outright winner of the first Download Speed Experience award to be awarded to an Iraqi operator. Our Asiacell users reported average download speeds of 22.9 Mbps — an impressive 8.6 Mbps (59.4%) faster than the speeds our users saw on second-placed Zain and twice as fast as the 11.6 Mbps seen by Korek users.

When we look at the experience of our Iraqi users based on the mobile technology they connected to, they saw their fastest average 4G speeds on Asiacell and Zain due to a statistical tie, while the fastest 3G speeds were seen on Asiacell’s network.

Asiacell wins the Upload Speed Experience award with a score of 9 Mbps, giving it an impressive lead of at least 4.6 Mbps. Our users on Zain and Korek’s networks reported statistically tied average upload speeds of 4.4 Mbps and 3.8 Mbps, respectively. However, while Asiacell users had the fastest speeds when connected to 4G (14.7 Mbps), Zain users saw the second fastest average upload speeds — 11.3 Mbps versus the 9 Mbps reported by those on Korek’s 4G network.

While download speeds always attract the most attention, upload speeds are becoming increasingly important to users. Sharing photos and videos on social media or large files all benefit from fast upload speeds.

4G Availability shows the average proportion of time Opensignal users spent with a 4G connection on each operator's network. Asiacell wins the first Iraqi 4G Availability award with a score of 73.4%, while Korek and Zain tie for second-place with statistically tied scores of 61.7% and 62.6%. This means that Asiacell wins by an impressive margin of at least 10.8 percentage points. 4G Availability is an important measure of the mobile experience as users typically report faster speeds and are less likely to struggle to stream video, use voice apps or play multiplayer mobile games when connected to 4G compared with previous generations of mobile technology.

Asiacell is the outright winner of the 4G Coverage Experience award with a score of 3.4 points on a 10 point scale. 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. Asiacell’s lead over second-placed Zain was 0.4 points, but Zain’s score of three points comfortably beat Korek’s score of 2.2 points.