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Our users had their best experience when streaming video on mobile connections on Orange and Vodafone’s networks, due to a statistical tie between their scores of 69 and 69.8 points, respectively, on a 100-point scale. This is the first time that Orange has not won the award outright, since we started reporting on the Romanian mobile network experience back in January 2020. The two front-runners placed in the Very Good (65<75) category, while our Digi Mobil and Telekom users had a Good (55<65) Video Experience.
The two-way statistical tie between Telekom and Vodafone that our users reported in the previous report has broadened to a three-way tie that includes Digi Mobil. As a result, Digi Mobil, Telekom and Vodafone are joint winners of the Games Experience award. 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 multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter.
Once again, our Orange users observed the fastest average download speeds in Romania — and the operator remains undefeated in this regard. However, Vodafone has again reduced Orange’s lead thanks to a rise of 2.5 Mbps (9.3%) in its Download Speed Experience score. As a result, Orange’s lead over second-placed Vodafone narrowed by 1.4 Mbps. The only other operator on which our users observed a significant change is Digi Mobil — its Download Speed Experience score declined by 1.7 Mbps (10.1%).
While Orange remains the outright winner of the 4G Coverage Experience award, both Vodafone and Digi Mobil saw their scores increase faster than Orange users. Both operators’ scores rose by 0.3 points versus Orange’s gain of 0.1 points. As a result, Orange’s lead fell by 0.2 points to 1 point ahead of second-placed Vodafone. These changes also mean that our Romanian users found a 4G signal in more than six out of 10 of the locations they visited, regardless of their choice of operator. Turning to 4G Availability, Digi Mobil is still the winner by an impressive margin and it remains the only operator on which our 4G users spent more than 90% of their time connected to 4G or better.
Once again, Orange has the largest haul of awards and is the only Romanian operator to win more than one award outright. It is still the sole winner of the Download Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience awards, while also being a joint winner of the Voice App Experience and Upload Speed Experience awards. However, it no longer wins the Video Experience award outright and has to settle for a joint win alongside Vodafone instead. Vodafone racks up four joint wins, while Digi Mobil is still the only operator aside from Orange to win an award outright, as it has successfully defended the 4G Availability award. On top of this, Digi Mobil is now part of a three-way statistical tie for the Games Experience award.
The 0.3 point rise in Vodafone’s 4G Coverage Experience score is likely due to the operator’s recent focus on expanding rural coverage. In August, it said that it deployed over 700 4G new base transceiver stations (BTS) between March 2020 and June 2021 and as a result it claims to provide mobile services to 96% of the country’s rural population.
Operators are continuing to expand 5G services gradually in Romania. In July 2021, Orange announced that it had expanded its 5G coverage to Craiova, the country’s sixth largest city. Like Orange, Vodafone and Digi Mobil launched commercial 5G services in 2019. While at the end of 2021 Telekom was yet to launch 5G, it announced in November the results of 5G tests using its current spectrum and 5G antennas deployed between Bucharest International Airport and the city center. The operator has also extended its rights to use the 2100 MHz band until the end of 2031, at a cost of €25 million ($28.4 million).
Also in November, Digi Mobil paid paid €42.7 million for additional spectrum to improve rural reach and add capacity. It acquired 2×5 MHz in the 800 MHz band suited for rural services, and four 2×5 MHz blocks in the 2600 MHz FDD band and one block of 15 MHz unpaired spectrum in the 2600 MHz TDD band both 2600 MHz bands are usually deployed in urban areas.
In this report, we’ve analyzed the mobile experience of our Romanian users across all four national operators — Digi Mobil, Orange, Telekom and Vodafone — over the 90 day period starting 1 September, 2021, and ending 29 November, 2021. 5G measurements contributed to the overall mobile network experience scores.
| Mobile Experience Awards Romania | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
January 2022,
Romania Report
|
D
Digi Mobil
|
O
Orange
|
T
Telekom
|
V
Vodafone
|
Video Experience
| ||||
Games Experience
| ||||
Voice App Experience
| ||||
Download Speed Experience
| ||||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||||
4G Availability
| ||||
4G Coverage Experience
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
January 2022,
Romania
|
|---|---|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
4G Availability
|
D
Digi Mobil
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
January 2022, Romania
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
O
Orange
V
Vodafone
|
|
Games Experience
|
D
Digi Mobil
T
Telekom
V
Vodafone
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
O
Orange
T
Telekom
V
Vodafone
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
O
Orange
V
Vodafone
|
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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