Lithuania
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.
Lithuania
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
Telia wins the Excellent Consistent Quality award
Telia is the operator with the highest percentage of users’ tests that met the minimum recommended thresholds for users to watch HD video, complete group video conference calls and play games. Its score of 86% makes it the outright winner of the Excellent Consistent Quality award winning by a margin of 5.4 percentage points over second placed BITĖ’s 80.6%.
BITĖ and Telia tie for Core Consistent Quality
While Telia reigns supreme for Excellent Consistent Quality, it was statistically tied with BITĖ on the percentage of users’ tests on its network that met the thresholds for less demanding applications such as standard definition video, voice calls and web browsing. As a result, the two operators are joint winners of the Core Consistent Quality award with scores of 92.7-92.8%. Tele2 is in third place, with a score of 90.7%, around two percentage points behind the two winners.
Telia has the fastest experience in Lithuania
For the second time in a row, Telia is the sole winner of the Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience awards. This means that our Telia users observed the fastest overall download and upload speeds — measured across all generations of mobile technology. Telia wins Download Speed Experience with a score of 63.8 Mbps, 19.9 Mbps (45.2%) faster than second placed Tele2’s score of 44 Mbps. Telia clocked up a score of 15.9 Mbps for Upload Speed Experience, 5.8 Mbps (57.2%) higher than BITĖ’s 10.1 Mbps.
All three operators share the Availability award, but Tele2 keeps hold of 4G Coverage Experience
In our first look at Availability — the proportion of time that users were connected to a 3G or better signal — in Lithuania our users did not observe any significant difference between their experience on the three national operators’ networks. As a result, BITĖ, Tele2 and Telia share the Availability award with scores of 95.9-97.9%. Meanwhile, Tele2 remains the sole winner of the 4G Coverage Experience award, winning it this time with a score of 8.3 points on a 10 point scale and a lead of 0.5 point over second placed Telia’s 7.9 points.
Mobile Experience Awards
Market Overview
Relatively little has changed since previous report, as far as the awards table is concerned. Telia remains the sole winner of both the Download and Upload Speed Experience awards. Similarly, Tele2 retains the 4G Coverage Experience award, while the three-way statistical ties for the Video Experience and Voice App Experience awards have persisted. Meanwhile BITĖ and Telia are still tied for Games Experience. However, Telia is the sole winner of one of the awards we have introduced in this report — Excellent Consistent Quality — and shares the Core Consistent Quality award with BITĖ. All three operators also share the new Availability award.
Telia continues to hold the lion’s share of awards, this time winning three awards outright and being a joint winner in an additional five. Meanwhile, BITĖ has collected five joint wins, while Tele2’s haul consists of three joint wins and a single outright win — for 4G Coverage Experience.
New spectrum will soon be available that should boost the mobile experience in Lithuania. The telecom regulator, Rysiu Reguliavimo Tarnyba (RRT), announced in late August that it has completed the auction for frequencies in the 700 MHz band, which consisted of one 2x10 MHz block and two 2x5 MHz blocks. Telia won the 2x10 MHz block, after bidding €23 million (approximately $23 million). Tele2 and BITĖ both claimed one 2x5 MHz block, at a cost of €3.9 million and €3 million, respectively.
In addition, the three national operators all snapped up 100 MHz of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band in early August. Telia paid €7 million for its block, while Tele2 and BITĖ both spent €3 million on theirs. Both the 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands play important roles when operators roll out 5G services nationwide. The 700 MHz band enables service provision in low density areas, given its excellent propagation characteristics, while the 3.5 GHz band supports 5G use in dense urban areas where high capacity is needed.
In June, Telia announced that it had completed the first stage of its 3G network shutdown. The operator stated it has deactivated around a third of its 3,500 3G base stations. The second phase is due to take place in the autumn and will cover the country’s major cities and Telia is aiming to complete the process by the end of the year. The freed up spectrum will be used to improve the operator’s 4G network’s coverage and capacity.
In this report, we’ve analyzed the mobile network experience on Lithuania’s three national operators — BITĖ, Tele2 and Telia — at the national level in the 90 day period starting on May 1, 2022, and ending on July 29, 2022.
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
Bite
Tele2
Telia
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.
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
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 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