Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumers' connectivity experiences. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding what happens when people use their mobile and broadband connections in their daily life.
Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumers' connectivity experiences. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding what happens when people use their mobile and broadband connections in their daily life.
Smartphone users on XL's mobile network enjoyed the best available quality of experience when streaming videos. Therefore, XL wins the Video Experience award and puts an end to Telkomsel's impressive winning streak. For six times in a row, Telkomsel has been the outright winner of Opensignal's Video Experience award in Indonesia since we introduced this measure in July 2019. But now XL has the top spot with a score of 44.8 points on a 100-point scale.
In this report, we have a new winner for Download speed Experience. XL wins the award as our users on its network clocked the fastest average download speeds in Indonesia. XL’s score of 18.7 Mbps is between 15.2% and 108.1% faster than the speeds seen by our users with other operators.
With average upload speeds of 7.7 Mbps, Telkomsel users saw the fastest Upload Speed Experience in Indonesia. The gap between Telkomsel and other operators varied significantly, ranging from a modest 7.3% with second-placed Indosat to a mind-blowing 365.5% over the speeds experienced by our Smartfren users.
Telkomsel wins the Excellent Consistent Quality award, with a score of 65.6% — 7.1 points ahead of second-placed Indosat. Also, Telkomsel wins the Core Consistent Quality award with a score of 82.8%, but with a smaller lead of 1.2 percentage points over Indosat. Consistent quality quantifies how often users’ network experience was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. Excellent Consistent Quality uses thresholds for more demanding applications than does Core Consistent Quality.
3 beats the competition on playing multiplayer mobile games and using over-the-top (OTT) voice services in Indonesia. In Games Experience, 3 wins the award with a lead of 3.6 points over second-placed XL. The operator also wins the Voice App Experience award, but it was a very tight race, with just 2.1 points (out of 100) separating all five operators.
Telkomsel is the outright winner of the 4G Coverage Experience award, with a score of 8.7 out 10 points, an impressive lead of 2.3 points ahead of the first runner-up — XL. This means Telkomsel users could find 4G in 87 out of 100 locations visited by all our users — the highest in Indonesia.
The first 5G services launched in Indonesia just over a year ago. While Telkomsel was the first to offer commercial 5G services, followed by Indosat and XL, the two other national operators — 3 and Smartfren — are still preparing their networks to adopt the new technology. In our recent 5G analysis, we found that although Indonesia's 5G services are still at an early stage, 5G already delivers a significant uplift in mobile experience compared to older 4G and 3G technologies. We have used 5G measurements in addition to those from older generations of mobile network technology when determining the overall scores for each award category.
To help operators to bring the enhanced experience of 5G to more parts of the country, Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kominfo) recently revealed plans to assign spectrum in the 700MHz band for 5G services. This is in addition to its announcement of the spectrum refarming and reassignment process for 5G in the 3.5GHz band that Kominfo aims to launch in 2023. As 5G continues to roll out 4G continues to play a vital role because consumers still spend most of their time connected to 4G.
Earlier this year, Ooredoo Group and CK Hutchison combined their respective units in Indonesia to form PT Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison. This change will likely transform the dynamics of the Indonesian mobile market, as the newly formed company is the second-largest provider in the market by connections and by spectrum holdings, behind Telkomsel but substantially greater than XL's. For this report, we continue to treat Indosat and 3 as individual operators, because during the period covered by this report they continued to operate as separate consumer brands.
Opensignal's latest analysis of the Indonesian mobile market reveals that Telkomsel remains the dominant operator when it comes to the mobile network experience in the country. The operator wins four out of nine awards. But while Telkomsel bags the largest haul of awards, XL has emerged as the new winner in Video Experience and Download Speed Experience. This is is the first time any Indonesian operator — apart from Telkomsel — has placed in the top spot for either category in our mobile network experience report. 3 also wins two awards — Games Experience and Voice App Experience. These results highlight the importance of using multiple measures of mobile network experience rather than just focusing on just one or two such as speed or signal strength.
XL is top in Indonesia when it comes to the quality of experience while streaming video on smartphones. XL wins the Video Experience award with an overall score of 44.8 points. With this score, XL has established a lead of 1.7 points over Telkomsel and almost four points over Indosat.
For most Indonesians a smartphone is their primary screen for entertainment. And with the rapidly increasing demand for mobile video consumption, the quality of experience while streaming video has become one of the critical aspects of users' mobile network experience. This means operators offering better Video Experience hold a distinct advantage over the competition.
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:
The low-cost barriers and on-the-go convenience offered by mobile gaming have made smartphones a dominant gaming platform in the country. And with the rising popularity of Esports among the largely young population, Indonesians are playing multiplayer mobile games online more than ever.
Opensignal's analysis shows that 3 outshines the competition in multiplayer mobile gaming. 3 wins the Games Experience award outright with 67 points on a scale of 0-100 — 3.6 points greater than closest rival XL. Meanwhile, Telkomsel and Smartfren followed XL closely with statistically tied scores in the 62.6-62.9 points range. Indosat is in last place with 60.3 points.
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:
We saw a close-run race for the Voice App Experience award, with 2.1 points separating all five operators. 3 is the winner with a score of 76.5 points, meaning users on 3's network perceived the best available experience while using over-the-top (OTT) voice app services such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger.
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:
XL users saw the fastest average download speeds in Indonesia — 18.7 Mbps — making XL the outright winner of the Download Speed Experience award. Previously, Telkomsel won this award outright in every Indonesian mobile network experience report, with six Download Speed Experience awards in a row.
However, this time XL beat Telkomsel’s long-held winning streak with a lead of 2.5 Mbps. Indosat and 3 followed behind with 14.1 Mbps and 11.2 Mbps, respectively, while Smartfren is in last place with 9 Mbps — average download speeds almost half of those seen by XL users.
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:
Telkomsel claims the Upload Speed Experience award outright. Our users on this network reported the fastest average upload speeds of 7.7 Mbps in Indonesia. This score was 0.5 Mbps faster than users’ experience on Indosat and a noteworthy 6 Mbps faster than that seen by Smartfren users.
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:
As is the case with the national scores, Telkomsel wins the most number of regional awards. In addition, our regional awards table also highlights Telkomsel’s strong dominance in Jawa Island, which is home to the majority of country’s population. The operator either placed first or joint-first in at least four out of five award categories across all six regions that make up the Jawa Island, including Jakarta Raya.
Looking at regional Video Experience, Telkomsel wins outright in Jawa Tengah and Yogyakarta and collected joint wins in three regions — Banten, Jakarta Raya and Jawa Barat — where it shared the top spot with XL. Additionally, XL is also the joint winner for this category in Kalimantan, alongside 3, and in the Lesser Sunda Islands where we saw a three-way split between XL, 3 and Indosat. XL and Indosat each win an award outright, in Sumatra and Sulawesi, respectively.
3 dominates the regional results for Games Experience and Voice App Experience by winning the majority of the awards in both categories. On Games Experience, 3 wins outright in four regions and collects joint wins in a further three. We saw a close run race on Voice Experience, but 3 managed to lead the scoreboard by securing the top spot in most regions (jointly or outright). However, Telkomsel has the most outright wins, being the sole victor in Banten, Jakarta Raya and Jawa Barat.
Turning to the speed categories, XL wins the most regional awards for Download Experience. Our users on XL's network saw the fastest download speeds in seven out of 10 regions — including Sulawesi, where users on Indosat and XL reported no statistical difference in the download speeds they experienced. Meanwhile, in Banten, Jawa Tengah and Yogyakarta, our Telkomsel users saw the top Download Speed Experience.
In Upload Speed Experience, Telkomsel is the outright winner in eight regions. However, Indosat and 3 are ahead of the pack in Sulawesi and Kalimantan, respectively.
Indonesia's 4G-only operator, Smartfren, wins the Availability award, as our users across all five national networks spent the most time connected to a cellular signal on Smartfren's network — 98.3% on average. 3 is in second place with a score of 97.3%, followed by Telkomsel with 95.3%, respectively. On the other hand, Indosat and XL were less than half a percentage point short of the 95% mark. These scores mean that smartphone users in Indonesia connected to a mobile broadband service more than 95 out of 100 times on average on at least three out of five national networks.
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.
Telkomsel wins the 4G Coverage Experience award with a score of 8.7 points — an impressive 2.3 points ahead of second-placed XL — which means our Telkomsel users connected to the 4G network in 87 out of 100 locations visited by our Indonesian users. Opensignal's 4G Coverage Experience analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
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.
In line with the national results, Smartfren, Indonesia's 4G only operator, dominates in Availability regionally. Smartfren is the outright winner for this category in five regions and joint winner in the remaining — four joint wins with 3, in addition to that with Telkomsel in Banten.
Taking home the Excellent Consistent Quality award, 65.6% of Telkomsel users’ tests met the minimum recommended performance thresholds sufficient to support demanding common applications (such as HD video, group video conference calls, and gaming), and led runners-up Indosat (58.5%) and XL (57.4%), by a wide margin.
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.
Telkomsel is also the sole winner of the Core Consistent Quality award. The operator's winning score of 82.8% gives it a lead of 1.2 percentage points over second-placed Indosat. XL's score stood further away at 77.3%, while Smartfren and 3 lagged with significantly lower scores of 43% and 41.6%, respectively.
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.
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile and broadband user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
Opensignal is the leading global provider of independent insights into consumers' connectivity experiences and choice of carrier. Our proprietary insights into mobile and broadband networks give operators the solutions they need to profitably compete and win, from executive level scorecards and public validation to pin-point level engineering analytics and consumer decision dynamics.
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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