Guatemala
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.
Guatemala
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.
Key Findings
Tigo wins both Consistency awards outright
Tigo is the outright winner of the Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality awards. This is in contrast to the last report, when Claro held both awards. Tigo’s victories were mainly due to four and 4.8 percentage point increases in its Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality scores, respectively. Our Claro users observed no statistically significant changes in their Excellent Consistent Quality score, while Core Consistent Quality rose by 0.5 percentage points.
Claro increases its Download Speed Experience lead
Our Claro users continued to observe the fastest average download speeds in Guatemala. The operator wins with a score of 23 Mbps — 8.9 Mbps (62.6%) faster than Tigo’s 14.1 Mbps. Claro’s lead is up from 5.8 Mbps in the last report, driven by a 3 Mbps increase in users’ speed. In contrast, our Tigo users’ average download speeds are unchanged.
Tigo gains ground on Games Experience but Claro still wins by an impressive margin
Claro remains the outright winner of the Games Experience award because its score of 49.9 points on a 100 point scale is more than 10 points ahead of Tigo’s 39.4 points. However, Tigo led Claro by a margin of 17.7 points in the previous report. So, the gap between the two operators’ score — while still large — has narrowed.
Claro keeps hold of the Upload Speed Experience award
In addition to winning the Download Speed Experience award, Claro also comes top for Upload Speed Experience. It does so with a score of 12.7 Mbps, nearly twice as fast as the average upload speeds of 6.5 Mbps reported by our Tigo users.
Mobile Experience Awards
Market Overview
In our second analysis of the Guatemalan mobile network experience, Claro continues to hold the lion’s share of awards, although this time around Tigo has bested it on Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality. Claro is the outright winner for five out of 10 awards including both Speed Experience awards. Tigo continues to be the sole winner of the 4G Coverage Experience award and a joint winner of the Video Experience and 4G Availability awards alongside Claro.
There have not been any statistically significant changes between both operators’ scores across all three Coverage metrics — Availability, 4G Availability and 4G Coverage Experience. With the latter two, this is not surprising given that both Claro and Tigo have been focused on their 5G rollouts.
Tigo went live with its 5G service at three locations in Guatemala City in mid July 2022 — quickly rising to 100 cell sites across the city — while Claro launched its 5G network later in the same month, stating that it had done so in all all 22 departments. Both operator 5G launches happened after the start of the data collection period for this report. Opensignal will analyze users’ 5G experience in future mobile network experience reports — once 5G adoption becomes more widespread.
In this report we examine the mobile network experience of the two main mobile network operators in Guatemala: Claro and Tigo, over a period of 90 days starting on June 1, 2022 and ending on August 29, 2022, to see how they fared. 5G measurements contributed to the scores for the overall experience metrics in this report.
Overall Experience
National Analysis
Claro and Tigo are joint winners of the Video Experience award with statistically tied scores of 41.9-43.6 points on a 100 point scale. Our Guatemalan users had a Fair (40-55) Video Experience regardless of their choice of operator. This indicates that they did not have a good experience either for higher resolution videos (very slow loading times and prolonged stalling) or for some video streaming providers. The experience on lower resolution videos from some providers might have been sufficient though.
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.
National Analysis
Our Claro users had the best available experience in Guatemala when playing multiplayer mobile games over cellular connections. Claro is therefore the sole winner of the Games Experience award. It wins with a score of 49.9 points on a 100 point scale. Tigo was more than 10 points behind with a score of 39.4 points. While Tigo still lags some way behind its rival, its score rose by 3.4 compared to that seen in the previous report and the gap between it and Claro is down from the 17.7 points seen last time around.
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.
National Analysis
Claro is the outright winner of the Voice App Experience award. This means that our Claro users had the best available experience when using over-the-top voice apps such as Facebook Messenger, Skype and WhatsApp. Claro wins with a score of 74.2 points on a 100 point scale, giving it a lead of five points over Tigo’s 69.2 points. Claro received an Acceptable (74-80) rating, while Tigo placed in the Poor (66-74) category.
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.
National Analysis
Claro continues to be the sole winner of the Download Speed Experience award. It retains this accolade due to its score of 23 Mbps — 8.9 Mbps (62.6%) faster than Tigo’s 14.1 Mbps. While Tigo’s score is unchanged from the previous report, Claro’s rose by 3 Mbps. As a result, Claro’s lead increased from the 5.8 Mbps it enjoyed in the previous report.
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).
National Analysis
Claro wins the Upload Speed Experience award for the second time in a row, doing so with a score of 12.7 Mbps, nearly twice as fast as the average upload speeds reported by our Tigo users — 6.5 Mbps. Tigo’s score fell by 0.7 Mbps (10%) compared to the speed seen in the previous report, while Claro’s was unchanged.
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
Tigo
National Analysis
Our Claro users spent the greatest proportion of time with a 3G connection or better, making Claro the outright winner of the Availability award for the second time in a row. It wins with a score of 97.1% and a lead of 2.6 percentage points over Tigo’s 94.5%. Our Claro and Tigo users did not observe any statistically significant differences in Availability between this report and the previous one.
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.
Map Definition
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.
National Analysis
Claro and Tigo remain joint winners of the 4G Availability award — this time due to their statistically tied scores of 84.5-86.6%. This means that our users in Guatemala did not see any significant difference in the proportion of time they connected to 4G regardless of their choice of operator. In addition, both operators’ scores are statistically unchanged from the previous report.
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.
4G Availability shows the proportion of time Opensignal users with a 4G device and a 4G subscription — but have never connected to 5G — had a 4G connection.
Map Definition
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.
National Analysis
Tigo is the outright winner of the 4G Coverage Experience award for the second time in a row. It wins with a score of 6.7 on a 10 point scale, a 1.4 point lead over Claro's score of 5.3. This means that our Tigo users received a 4G signal in most locations out of all those visited by our users across both Guatemalan operators. Our users’ scores are statistically unchanged from the previous report.
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.
Map Definition
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
National Analysis
Tigo has replaced Claro as the sole winner of the Excellent Consistent Quality award. It wins with a lead of 0.8 percentage points over Claro’s 65.3%. Tigo’s victory was principally driven by a four percentage point increase in its score since the previous report.
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.
National Analysis
As with Excellent Consistent Quality, Tigo has knocked Claro off the winner’s podium for Core Consistent Quality. Tigo wins with a score of 83.4%, giving it a lead of 1.8 percentage points over Claro’s 81.6%. Tigo’s victory was made possible by a 4.8 percentage point increase in its score since the previous report, while Claro’s score rose by only 0.5 percentage points.
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 and broadband user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
About Opensignal
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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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