Argentina
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.
Argentina
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.
Key Findings
Users enjoy the fastest download and upload speeds with Personal
Personal wins the Download Speed Experience award with our users having average download speeds of 22.1 Mbps — a 3.7 Mbps lead over second placed Claro. Movistar was in third place with users’ average download speeds of 14.6 Mbps. Personal also wins the Upload Speed Experience award outright with a score of 7.2 Mbps, only 0.8 Mbps ahead of Claro and 1.8 Mbps ahead of third placed Movistar.
Personal is the outright winner of both Availability and 4G Coverage Experience awards
Personal is the outright winner of the Availability award with an impressive score of 97.5% meaning that our Personal users in Argentina connected to a 3G, 4G, or 5G network 97.5% of the time. Claro and Movistar are in a two-way tie for second place with scores of 95.9%-96.0%. Personal also wins the 4G Coverage Experience award with a score of 8.1 points on a 10 point scale meaning our users on Personal’s network connected to 4G services in more than eight out of 10 locations they visited. Claro is close behind scoring 7.9 points while Movistar placed third with a score of 6.7 points.
Personal is the clear winner of the Video Experience award
Our users on Claro’s network had the best available experience while streaming videos on their smartphones. As a result, Personal is the outright winner for the Video Experience award with a score of 50.2 points. Claro follows Personal with a score of 48.4 points while Movistar lags further behind scoring 39.6 points on a 100-point scale.
Claro seizes both Consistent Quality awards
Claro had the highest percentage of users’ tests that passed the minimum recommended performance thresholds for both demanding use-cases such as HD group video calling evaluated using Excellent Consistent Quality and common use-cases like web browsing measured using Core Consistent Quality. Claro had an Excellent Consistent Quality of 71.6% winning the award by a margin of 3.6 percentage points closely followed by Personal at 67.9%. Movistar lagged further behind with an Excellent Consistent Quality of 39.6%. For Core Consistent Quality, Claro wins by a smaller margin of 2.1 percentage points scoring 83.3% while Personal followed close behind scoring 81.2%. Movistar placed third trailing Claro by a substantial 24.4 percentage points.
Claro and Personal jointly win the Games and Voice App Experience awards
When it comes to playing multiplayer games over a cellular connection and using over-the-top (OTT) mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger, our users in Argentina did not see any statistically significant difference in their experience on Claro and Personal’s network. Claro and Personal jointly win the Games Experience award with scores of 60.9-61.1 while they share the award for Voice App Experience award with scores of 75.4-76.0.
Mobile Experience Awards
Market Overview
In our latest look at the mobile network experience in Argentina, Personal is the leading operator as it wins five out of nine awards — Video Experience, Download and Upload Speed Experience, Availability and 4G Coverage Experience. Claro is the outright winner for both Excellent and Core Consistent Quality awards. Claro and Personal jointly win two awards — Games and Voice App Experience.
Argentina is making progress when it comes to 5G rollout in the country. In December, 2021 Argentina’s National Communications Agency (Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones, ENACOM) published a list of frequencies that the agency found suitable for 5G deployment in the future. These frequencies are in the 1500 MHz, AWS-3, 2.3 GHz, 3.5 GHz, 26 GHz and 38 GHz bands. In March 2022, Personal announced that it expanded 5G coverage by deploying 10 mobile sites in the Atlantic Coast and in three cities — Mar del Plata, Pinamar, and Cariló. In addition to 5G, ENACOM is also undertaking initiatives to boost 4G capacity in the country. It recently decided to reorganize frequencies in the 2600 MHz band and provide additional spectrum to incumbent operators to improve LTE coverage in the country.
Our results in this report are based on measurements collected across all major mobile operators in Argentina – Claro, Movistar and Personal – over the period of 90 days between February 1, 2022 and May 1, 2022, to see how they fared. We have used 5G measurements in addition to those from previous generations of mobile network technology when determining the overall scores for each metric.
Overall Experience
Definitions
Opensignal’s 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 based on 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 — including Full HD (FHD) and 4K / Ultra HD (UHD) — and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.
In addition to Video Experience, we report on the following metrics related to video experience:
- 5G Video Experience: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users when they were connected to an operator’s 5G network.
- Video Experience – 5G Users: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator's networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G video experience along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Video Experience: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 4G network.
- 3G Video Experience: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users on an operator’s 3G network.
Definitions
Opensignal’s 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 our users’ multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter.
Games Experience quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination). 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.
Calculating Games Experience starts with measuring the end-to-end experience from users’ devices to internet end-points that host real games. The score is then measured on a scale from 0 to 100.
In addition to Games Experience, we report on the following metrics related to games experience:
- 5G Games Experience: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users when they were connected to an operator’s 5G network.
- Games Experience – 5G Users: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator's networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G games experience along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Games Experience: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 4G network.
- 3G Games Experience: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO) network.
Definitions
Opensignal's 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) 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.
In addition to Voice App Experience, we report on the following metrics related to voice app experience:
- 5G Voice App Experience: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users when they were connected to an operator’s 5G network.
- Voice App Experience – 5G Users: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator's networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G voice app experience along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Voice App Experience: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 4G network.
- 3G Voice App Experience: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO) network.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Download Speed Experience represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across an operator’s mobile data networks.
In addition to Download Speed Experience, we report on the following metrics related to download speeds:
- 5G Download Speed: The average download speed observed by Opensignal users with active 5G connections.
- Download Speed Experience – 5G Users: The average download speeds experienced by Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator’s networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G download speeds along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Download Speed: The average downlink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 4G.
- 3G Download Speed: The average downlink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO).
Definitions
Upload Speed Experience measures the average upload speeds for each operator observed by our users across their mobile data networks. Typically upload speeds are slower than download speeds, as current mobile broadband technologies focus resources on providing the best possible download speed for users consuming content on their devices. As mobile internet trends move away from downloading content to creating content and supporting real-time communications services, upload speeds are becoming more vital and new technologies are emerging that boost upstream capacity.
In addition to Upload Speed Experience, we report on five supporting metrics related to upload speeds:
- 5G Upload Speed: The average upload speed observed by Opensignal users with active 5G connections.
- Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users: The average upload speeds experienced by Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator’s networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G upload speeds along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Upload Speed: The average uplink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 4G.
- 3G Upload Speed: The average uplink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO).
Coverage
Claro
Movistar
Personal
Definitions
Our availability metrics are not a measure of a network’s geographical extent. They won’t tell you whether you are likely to get a signal if you plan to visit a remote rural or nearly uninhabited region. Instead, they measure what proportion of time people have a network connection, in the places they most commonly frequent — something often missed by traditional coverage metrics. Looking at when users have a connection rather than where, provides us with a more precise reflection of the true user experience.
We also keep track of the instances that leave mobile users most frustrated: when there is no signal to connect to at all. The most common dead zones users struggle with occur indoors. As most of our availability data is collected indoors (as that’s where users spend most of their time), we’re particularly astute at detecting areas of zero signal.
Our availability metrics take a user-centric, time-based approach that complements the user-centric and geographical-based methodology used by our reach metrics.
Availability shows the proportion of time all Opensignal users on an operator’s network had either a 3G, 4G or 5G connection.
The coverage maps show the locations where we received measurements from users connecting with 3G or better mobile service. Each map provides an indication of the areas in which it is possible to obtain mobile service from that mobile operator.
Definitions
4G Coverage Experience measures 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.
In simple terms, 4G Coverage Experience measures the mobile coverage experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users — i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel. It considers all the areas that Opensignal users visit, the portion of locations that 4G is available to them, and locations that more users visit have higher importance to them.
The coverage maps show the locations where we received measurements from users connecting with 3G or better mobile service. Each map provides an indication of the areas in which it is possible to obtain mobile service from that mobile operator.
Consistency
Definitions
Consistent Quality measures how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. It measures download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, time to first byte and the percentage of tests attempted which did not succeed due to a connectivity issue on either the download or server response component.
Full details on how the Consistent Quality metrics — Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality — are calculated can be found here.
Excellent Consistent Quality is the percentage of users’ tests that met the minimum recommended performance thresholds to watch HD video, complete group video conference calls and play games.
Definitions
Consistent Quality measures how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. It measures download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, time to first byte and the percentage of tests attempted which did not succeed due to a connectivity issue on either the download or server response component.
Full details on how the Consistent Quality metrics — Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality — are calculated can be found here.
Core Consistent Quality is the percentage of users’ tests that met the minimum recommended performance thresholds for lower performance applications including SD video, voice calls and web browsing.
Related Analysis
Our Methodology
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.
About Opensignal
Opensignal is the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe. We are the independent authority for understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
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Confidence Intervals
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