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Vodafone is the first Spanish operator to win the 5G Download Speed Award. It scored an impressive 181.1 Mbps, well ahead of its rivals. Orange and Yoigo share second place with statistically tied scores of 135 Mbps and 124.9 Mbps, respectively, while Movistar is in last place with a score of 86.8 Mbps.
Our users had their best multiplayer mobile gaming experience when connected to 5G on Vodafone’s network. The operator wins the 5G Games Experience award with a score of 74.9 points on a 100 point scale, narrowly falling short of placing in the Good (75<85) category, and commanding a lead of around 3.4 points. Spain’s other nationwide operators share second place with statistically tied scores in the 71.2-71.7 point range and like Vodafone placed in the Fair category (65<75).
These three operators are joint winners of both the 5G Availability and 5G Reach awards — this means that our users spent the most time connected to 5G on their networks and on average connected to 5G in the most locations out of all the locations they visited. Vodafone is in last place for both measures of the 5G mobile experience.
Our Vodafone and Yoigo Spanish users had the best experience when using over-the-top (OTT) voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger over 5G networks, with statistically tied scores of 82.1 and 80.9 points on a 100 point scale, respectively. Similarly, Movistar and Orange share third place with scores of 80.8 and 80.3 points.
Movistar and Yoigo are the first Spanish operators to win the 5G Video Experience award — with statistically tied scores of 77.6 and 77.5 points, respectively. Orange and Vodafone share third place with scores of 75.9 and 74.9 points on a 100 point scale. 5G Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's 5G network.
Our first look at the Spanish 5G experience reveals fierce competition, with five out of seven awards shared between two or more operators. Vodafone is the only operator to win awards outright: 5G Games Experience and 5G Download Speed. However, it places last for 5G Availability and 5G Reach — highlighting the importance of analyzing multiple measures to provide a complete picture of users’ mobile network experience.
Much has happened since the auction of the 700 MHz band in July. The Spanish government has started preparations for the auctioning of the 26 GHz band for 5G use. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation launched a consultation late in 2021 to gather information on the demand for this spectrum and stakeholders’ views on how it should be managed.
In mid-January 2022, Vodafone announced that it had launched 700 MHz 5G in 109 municipalities across 30 provinces. 17 of the 25 cities that at that time were already covered by the operator’s 3.5 GHz 5G spectrum will also get a 700 MHz 5G service, including Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Malaga, Zaragoza, Valladolid and Murcia.
In late December, Yoigo claimed that it had hit 54% population coverage with its 5G network. In early January, Orange’s 5G population coverage was reported to be 52% and the operator is seeking to increase it to 90% by the end of 2022, while Movistar reportedly hit the 80% mark in April 2021, using both non-standalone access technology and dynamic spectrum sharing.
In this report, we’ve analyzed the 5G experience of our Spanish users across all four national operators — Movistar, Orange, Vodafone and Yoigo — over the 90 day period starting September 1, 2021 and ending November 29, 2021.
We have also published a companion report — which analyzes the overall mobile experience of our Spanish users weighted by the amount of time they spent connected to each mobile technology.
| 5G Mobile Experience Awards Spain | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
February 2022,
Spain Report
|
M
Movistar
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O
Orange
|
V
Vodafone
|
Y
Yoigo
|
5G Availability
| ||||
5G Reach
| ||||
5G Video Experience
| ||||
5G Games Experience
| ||||
5G Voice App Experience
| ||||
5G Download Speed
| ||||
5G Upload Speed
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
February 2022,
Spain
|
|---|---|
|
5G Games Experience
|
V
Vodafone
|
|
5G Download Speed
|
V
Vodafone
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
February 2022, Spain
|
|---|---|
|
5G Availability
|
M
Movistar
O
Orange
Y
Yoigo
|
|
5G Reach
|
M
Movistar
O
Orange
Y
Yoigo
|
|
5G Video Experience
|
M
Movistar
Y
Yoigo
|
|
5G Voice App Experience
|
V
Vodafone
Y
Yoigo
|
|
5G Upload Speed
|
O
Orange
V
Vodafone
Y
Yoigo
|
Movistar, Orange and Yoigo are joint winners of the 5G Availability award with statistically tied scores. Our users on these operators’ networks with both a 5G smartphone and a 5G tariff plan spent 9.6-10.6% of their time with an active 5G connection. Vodafone is in last place with a score of 4.1%.
As is the case with 5G Availability — our complementary measure of the extent of 5G networks — Movistar, Orange and Yoigo share the 5G Reach award. Their statistically tied scores are in the 2.9-3.3 point range on a 10 point scale. Vodafone is again in last place with a score of 1.9 points.
5G Reach is a measure of how mobile users experience the geographical extent of an operator’s network. It analyzes the average proportion of locations where users were connected to a 5G network out of all the locations those users have visited. In simple terms, 5G Reach measures the mobile experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users — i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel.
Movistar and Yoigo are the inaugural Spanish joint winners of the 5G Video Experience award, with statistically tied scores of 77.6 and 77.5 points, respectively. Orange and Vodafone share third place with scores of 75.9 and 74.9 points on a 100 point scale.
5G Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's 5G network. It is derived from an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach. 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.
Vodafone is the first Spanish operator to win the 5G Games Experience award. It does so with a score of 74.9 points on a 100 point scale, narrowly falling short of placing in the Good (75<85) category, and commanding a lead of around 3.4 points. Spain’s other nationwide operators share second place with statistically tied scores in the 71.2-71.7 point range and like Vodafone placed in the Fair category (65<75).
A Fair 5G Games Experience means that users found the experience to be ‘average’. In most cases the game was responsive to the actions of the player with most users reporting that they felt like they had control over the game. The majority of players reported that they noticed a delay between their actions and the outcomes in the game.
5G Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s 5G 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. Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.
Vodafone and Yoigo are joint winners of the 5G Voice App Experience award, with statistically tied scores of 82.1 and 80.9 points on a 100 point scale, respectively. Similarly, Movistar and Orange share third place with scores of 80.8 and 80.3 points.
Vodafone wins the 5G Download Speed Award. It scored a remarkable 181.1 Mbps, well ahead of its rivals. Orange and Yoigo share second place with statistically tied scores of 135 Mbps and 124.9 Mbps, respectively, while Movistar is in last place with a score of 86.8 Mbps.
Three operators share the inaugural Spanish 5G Upload Speed Experience award: Orange, Vodafone and Yoigo. Our users on these three operators’ 5G networks reported statistically tied average upload speeds in the 21-23 Mbps range. Movistar was a few Mbps behind the joint winners with a score of 19 Mbps.
While most focus has traditionally been on download speeds, upload speeds are becoming increasingly important to users as social media encourages them to share videos and images over mobile connections.
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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