Argentina
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.
Argentina
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
Personal users continue to see the fastest speeds in Argentina
Our Personal users observe the fastest average download and upload speeds — 25.8Mbps and 6.9Mbps, respectively. This means that Personal’s formidable winning streak continues — the operator has won the Download Speed Experience award outright ever since the December 2016 report and is the only Argentinean operator to win the Upload Speed Experience award since the award was first included in Argentina mobile network experience reports back in June 2019.
Our Claro users have the best experience when using over-the-top voice apps in Argentina
Claro is the new outright winner of the Voice App Experience award after sharing it with Personal in the previous report. Claro comes top with a score of 77.6 points on a 100-point scale, giving it a lead of 1.5 points over second-placed Personal’s 76.1 points. Movistar brings up the rear with 74.1 points. However, all three of Argentina’s national operators place in the Acceptable (74-80) category for Voice App Experience.
Claro wins Core Consistent Quality outright but Personal keeps hold of the Excellent Consistent Quality award
Claro has gone back to being the sole winner of the Core Consistent Quality award after sharing it with Personal in the last report. Claro wins with a score of 84.4%, while former joint winner Personal is in second place with 82.1% and Movistar comes last with 77.7%. Core Consistent Quality uses thresholds for less demanding common applications including SD video, voice calls and web browsing. Meanwhile, Personal remains the outright winner of the Excellent Consistent Quality, winning it with a score of 71.9%, narrowly ahead of Claro’s 71.5%. Movistar is much further behind with its score of 57.6%.
The best mobile video streaming experience is with Personal
Personal is once again the outright winner of the Video Experience award — it remains the only operator to win the award since its introduction in the June 2019 Argentina mobile network experience report. Personal comes top this time with a score of 60 points on a 100-point scale, giving it a lead of 2.6 points over second-placed Claro’s 57.4 points. Movistar is in last place with 52.1 points. Only Personal places in the Good (58-68) category, while Claro and Movistar earn Fair (48-58) ratings.
Mobile Experience Awards
Market Overview
Personal still wins the most awards but its haul is considerably reduced from the last report when there wasn’t a single category that it didn’t win either outright or jointly. This time around, the operator wins four out of eight awards outright (Video Experience, Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience and Excellent Consistent Quality), while tying with Claro on Game Experience (for the fifth report in a row) and Availability. Meanwhile, Claro wins the Voice App Experience and Core Consistent Quality awards outright, while Movistar again does not pick any awards.
Personal comes top for overall Coverage Experience in Argentina in our first analysis to use this new methodology. The operator wins with a score of 7.5 points on a 10-point scale, while Claro and Movistar follow behind with scores of 6.8 and five points, respectively. Opensignal’s new Coverage Experience metric represents the real-world experience users receive as they travel around areas where they would reasonably expect to find coverage.
The National Communications Agency (Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones, ENACOM) expects Argentina’s much-delayed multi-band 5G spectrum auction to take place in June 2023.
The additional spectrum will allow Argentina’s operators to make full use of 5G. While Personal ended 2022 with 180 5G cell sites in service, they use the operator’s preexisting 4G spectrum via dynamic spectrum sharing.
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, 2023 and May 1, 2023, 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.
Video Experience scores account for adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), a technology that allows Opensignal to accurately represent users’ real video experience including video streams up to 4K quality.
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.
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