Sri Lanka

Dialog defends the Video Experience award that it won outright for the first time in the previous report, after taking it away from Mobitel. Dialog wins with a score of 58.7 points — 7.5 points ahead of second-placed Airtel. Dialog is the only operator in Sri Lanka to place in the Good (55<65) category, while Airtel and Mobitel are rated as Fair (40<55).

Both Airtel and Dialog are listed as Global Rising Stars for Video Experience in our recent Global Awards report. This means they were among the operators on which networks our users saw the largest percentage improvements in Video Experience scores in the world.

Opensignal’s Video Experience metric quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's networks. To calculate video experience, we are directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using an ITU-based 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.

In the last report, Dialog and Mobitel jointly won the Games Experience award. This time, Dialog breaks out of the statistical tie, thanks to an increase in score of 2.9 points, with Mobitel’s score remaining statistically unchanged. Dialog wins the Games Experience award outright, with a score of 40.1 points. It placed in the Poor category (40<65), while Sri Lanka’s other operators landed in the category below — Very Poor (below 40). Our users on Airtel’s network saw the highest increase in the Games Experience score — 4.9 points (15.3%).

Opensignal’s Games Experience metric 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.

Similar to the Games Experience award, Dialog also wins the Voice App Experience award, after sharing it with Mobitel in the previous report. All operators in Sri Lanka placed in the Poor (66<74) category — with Hutch and Airtel moving up from the Very Poor (60<66) category. Airtel saw the most significant improvement in its score — 7.6 points (12.7%).

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.

Dialog wins the Download Speed Experience award for the second consecutive time, after prying it out of Mobitel’s hands in the previous report. Our users on Dialog’s network saw the fastest average download speeds of 10.1 Mbps, the only operator to hit the 10 Mbps mark this time, after an increase of 1.6 Mbps (18.2%). Our users on all Sri Lanka networks saw a significant boost in the average download speeds on their networks: 0.5 Mbps (11.7%) for Hutch, 0.8 Mbps (10.4%) for Mobitel and 2.5 Mbps (55.2%) for Airtel.

Looking at average 4G download speeds, Dialog is in the lead with a score of 11.2 Mbps, 1.6 Mbps ahead of Mobitel.

Dialog remains unbeatable in Upload Speed Experience, winning the award outright for the fifth consecutive time with a score of 5.3 Mbps. Similar to Download Speed Experience, all the Sri Lankan operators saw improvements in their average upload speeds scores. Our users on Airtel’s network enjoyed the most impressive boost of 1.8 Mbps — a fourfold increase since the previous report. Dialog and Mobitel each saw increases in their average upload speeds of 1 Mbps, while our Hutch users saw an improvement in their average uplod speeds of 0.4 Mbps (20.9%).

Thanks to its impressive improvement in Upload Speed Experience, Airtel featured among Global Rising Stars in our recent Global Awards report — placing first in the Asia Pacific region and fourth globally. As mobile internet trends move away from downloading content to creating content and supporting real-time communications services, upload speeds are becoming more important to users.

Airtel wins the 4G Availability award with a score of 81.8%, dethroning both previous joint winners — Dialog and Mobitel. It was the only network in Sri Lanka on which our users connected to 4G services more than 80% of their time. Dialog and Mobitel are in a statistical tie for second place, with scores of 78.8% and 77.2%, respectively. Hutch lagged behind its competitors, with our users on this network connecting to 4G services less than 70% of the time. It was, however, recognized as one of the Global Rising Stars for 4G Availability in Opensignal’s latest Global Awards report.

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. It is not a measure of geographic coverage or the geographic extent of a network.

Dialog wins the 4G Coverage Experience award outright, with a score of 8.7 points on a 10-point scale — one point ahead of second-placed Mobitel. Our users on Sri Lanka’s networks were able to connect to 4G in more locations than in the previous report. The winner saw an increase in its score of 0.2 points, while the other established 4G operators — Hutch and Mobitel — saw boosts of 0.4 points each in their scores. Having launched 4G services only recently, Airtel scored 3.1 points in 4G Coverage Experience — 1.3 points behind third-placed Hutch.

Opensignal’s 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.