Mobile Network Experience Report Portugal February 2022

Portugal

Mobile Network Experience Report
February 2022

Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumer mobile experience. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.

Author
Sam Fenwick Senior Analyst

Key Findings

NOS wins the Upload Speed Experience award

This time, our NOS users observed the fastest average upload speeds in Portugal — 13.3 Mbps. They also observed the only significant increase among Portugal’s operators since the last report — 1.6 Mbps (13.4%). This enabled NOS to break the statistical tie with Vodafone and win the award outright. MEO and Vodafone are statistically tied for second place with scores of 11.7 Mbps and 11.9 Mbps, respectively.

Our NOS users spent the most time connected to 4G

NOS has also moved from sharing the 4G Availability award with Vodafone in the last report to winning it outright. This change was driven by a 1.8 percentage point increase in NOS’s 4G Availability score along with a drop of 3.4 percentage points for Vodafone. Meanwhile, MEO’s score is statistically unchanged from the last report. As a result of these changes, NOS was the only operator on which our users spent more than 90% of their time connected to 4G. However, all three operators remain in a three-way statistical tie for 4G Coverage Experience, which analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.

NOS forces a joint win with MEO for the Download Speed Experience award

In the last report, our MEO users observed the fastest average download speeds in Portugal and by a margin of 3 Mbps over second-placed Vodafone. This time, due to an impressive 18.2 Mbps (76.1%) increase in NOS’s score, the operator has catapulted itself from third place to joint first alongside MEO. This is despite MEO’s score rising by 3 Mbps (7.9%) since the last report.

NOS comes top for Video Experience

When streaming mobile video over cellular connections, our NOS users had the best experience — a marked change from the previous report, when MEO and Vodafone were joint winners. However, all three operators placed in the Very Good (65<75) category, which indicates generally fast loading times and only occasional stalling.

NOS joins MEO and Vodafone in a three-way tie for the Voice App Experience award

This time around, there was no statistical difference in our users’ experience when using over-the-top (OTT) voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger over mobile connections on the three national networks. In the last report, only MEO and Vodafone were joint winners. Our Portuguese users had a Good (80<87) Voice App Experience on all three operators’ networks. This means that many users were satisfied, but some experienced minor quality impairments.

Introduction

A great deal has changed since the last look at Portugal’s mobile network experience. NOS has gone from having the smallest haul of awards (three joint wins in the previous report) to winning every award either outright or jointly. It wins three awards outright (Video Experience, Upload Speed Experience and 4G Availability), after not having any sole victories last time around.

Since the previous report, all three nationwide operators have launched 5G mobile services. Both NOS and Vodafone did so in late November, while MEO followed shortly afterwards with a launch in early January.

All three operators obtained 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz spectrum in ANACOM’s recent 5G spectrum auction. In addition, both NOS and MEO also acquired additional spectrum in the 900 MHz band, while NOS obtained the spectrum in the 2100 MHz band as well. In addition, ANACOM launched a consultation on the use of the 26 GHz band, which closed at the end of January.

In this report, we’ve analyzed the mobile experience of our Portuguese users across all three national operators — MEO, NOS and Vodafone — over the 90 day period starting September 1, 2021 and ending November 29, 2021. Our results include measurements from all generations of mobile network technologies.

Opensignal Awards Table

Mobile Experience Awards Portugal
February 2022, Portugal Report
Video Experience
Games Experience
Voice App Experience
Download Speed Experience
Upload Speed Experience
4G Availability
4G Coverage Experience
Download Image
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
February 2022, Portugal
Video Experience
Upload Speed Experience
4G Availability
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
February 2022, Portugal
Games Experience
Voice App Experience
Download Speed Experience
4G Coverage Experience
Download Image

Overview

Click on metric labels below for a quick preview
Video Experience
in 0-100 points
MEO
70.0
NOS
72.2
Vodafone
71.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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National Analysis

Video Experience

Video Experience
in 0-100 points
MEO
70.0
NOS
72.2
Vodafone
71.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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Games Experience

Games Experience
in 0-100 points
MEO
66.8
NOS
70.1
Vodafone
68.7
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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Voice App Experience

Voice App Experience
in 0-100 points
MEO
80.0
NOS
80.4
Vodafone
80.3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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Download Speed Experience

Download Speed Experience
in Mbps
MEO
40.6
NOS
42.1
Vodafone
34.7
011.2522.533.7545
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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Upload Speed Experience

Upload Speed Experience
in Mbps
MEO
11.7
NOS
13.3
Vodafone
11.9
03.757.511.2515
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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4G Availability

4G Availability
% of time
MEO
84.8
NOS
91.6
Vodafone
87.1
023.7547.571.2595
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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4G Coverage Experience

4G Coverage Experience
in 0-10 points
MEO
9.2
NOS
9.2
Vodafone
9.2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
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Learn more

Opensignal measures the real-world experience of consumers on mobile networks in the places they live, work and travel.

We continually adapt our methodology to best represent the true experience of smartphone users. Therefore, comparisons of the results to past reports should be considered indicative only.

For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple winners.

In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars. In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.

More about Methodology

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For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple operator winners.

In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars.

In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.

Why confidence intervals are vital in analyzing mobile network experience