Ookla | December 15, 2022

How Digicel Samoa Attracted 20% More Subscribers with Brand Campaigns Backed by Ookla® [Case Study]

Digicel provides telecommunications services to the island of Samoa, where there are just over 200,000 residents and two leading mobile operators. In a winner-takes-all market, it’s vital to capture the trust and loyalty of your subscribers. When the competing operator started offering less expensive plan options, Digicel needed to retain subscribers by showcasing their superior network performance to both existing and prospective customers.

As part of their mission to be the very best in delivering digital services, experiences, and connectivity, Digicel has been continuously improving their network performance. As a result of these efforts they were awarded the Speedtest Award™ for Fastest Mobile Network Operator during Q1–Q2 2022. Digicel licensed this Speedtest Award for use in their brand campaigns to help promote their superior network and build consumer trust.

Situation

For an operator to win consumer trust, it’s important to be able to back claims about your network with verified third-party data. Digicel wanted Samoan consumers to know they could expect the best performance on their network — and for their brand and marketing campaigns to be verified by a source that consumers recognize and trust. Digicel leveraged independent, verified third-party data from Ookla^® to back their claims and inform customers they have the fastest network in the market — and to attract subscribers from their rival operator.

Read the full case study here.

Ookla retains ownership of this article including all of the intellectual property rights, data, content graphs and analysis. This article may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed or published for any commercial purpose without prior consent. Members of the press and others using the findings in this article for non-commercial purposes are welcome to publicly share and link to report information with attribution to Ookla.

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Mark Giles | December 11, 2022

No Upsets in Qatar as Network Performance Peaks

Key messages

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ is the first in the Middle East region, and the first to be supported by 5G networks.
It would not have been a surprise to see network performance degrade during the tournament, with over 2.45 million cumulative stadium attendees in a country with a population of just 2.93 million. However, median mobile network download speeds increased substantially in November to reach 263.37 Mbps (based on modern chipsets), up from 190.93 Mbps in October.
Ooredoo and Vodafone’s network investment has helped maintain a consistent user experience for fans, with median internet page load times and video streaming start times well below 2 seconds for 5G users.

The first FIFA World Cup® supported by 5G networks

Awarded in December 2010 to Qatar, this year’s FIFA World Cup is the first to take place in the Middle East, and the first to be supported by commercial 5G networks. Ahead of the event, we outlined the important role of the Qatar Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) and both Ooredoo Qatar and Vodafone Qatar in driving performance gains in the market. A competitive, pro-investment market environment has paid dividends, coupled with firm commitments from both operators to roll out commercial 5G networks in all densely populated areas and all venues associated with the FIFA World Cup.

As of December 3, 2022, after almost two weeks and 48 games, the FIFA World Cup has seen over 2.45 million cumulative stadium attendees. For a country with a population of 2.93 million, ensuring mobile network performance meets expectations has been no easy feat. Ookla® was keen to understand how Qatari mobile networks were handling the deluge of visitors and additional traffic. According to Speedtest Intelligence®, median download performance in November rose to 263.37 Mbps on modern chipsets across all mobile technologies combined, with median 5G download performance hitting 472.13 Mbps.

Fans visiting Qatar for the World Cup™ have benefitted from the offer of local SIMs from national mobile operators Ooredoo and Vodafone, which include free data. Ooredoo SIMs include 2022 MB of data for free, valid for 3 days, while Vodafone customers have access to 3GB of data for free, valid across 2 days. Encouraging visitors to utilize local SIMs has helped provide superior network performance for fans at the World Cup. In addition, it’s clear that the network enhancements made by Ooredoo and Vodafone, and their live monitoring and optimization of network performance using crowdsourced data, has helped boost overall network performance at the event, despite the deluge of fans and resultant data traffic.

Qatar’s mobile networks driving increased speeds despite the deluge of fans

We used Speedtest Intelligence data to observe performance in the lead up to, and during the FIFA World Cup™. 5G performance increased from a median download of 394.2 Mbps and upload of 19.93 Mbps 10 weeks before the event, while hitting a median download speed of 489.29 Mbps and median upload speed of 38.36 Mbps during the second week of the World Cup™. Ooredoo and Vodafone have played a crucial role in driving increased 5G performance at the World Cup with both mobile network operators neck-and-neck in terms of 5G download performance.

Comparing mobile network performance during the first two weeks of the FIFA World Cup™ to that of other major sporting events in the region and further afield shows just how impressive 5G network performance has been so far, given the number of attendees. While not the fastest sporting event on record, the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ ranks highly, well ahead of events such as the French Open and Wimbledon.

Network improvements ensuring consistent quality of experience for World Cup™ fans

Ooredoo, FIFA’s Official Global Connectivity Services Provider for the event, has been very vocal on the improvements it has made to its network and operations. Ooredoo has rolled out additional macro cell sites and small cells to cater to data traffic around the stadiums, and has also deployed over 5,000 cell sites to offer sufficient network coverage across mobile technologies within the stadiums.

Using Speedtest Intelligence data to analyze network performance across Qatar’s World Cup™ stadiums for both Ooredoo and Vodafone combined, we see that Al Janoub Stadium recorded the fastest median 5G download performance at 757.77 Mbps, and that all World Cup™ stadiums recorded median 5G speeds over 400 Mbps. Of the most popular fan sites, the Ras Bufontas and Airport Free Zone recorded the highest 5G performance.

Ooredoo has also implemented a full modernisation of its core network, moving to a cloud-based architecture, while also making improvements to the capacity of its national and international IP transport links to ensure sufficient capacity for fans to better access servers for popular OTT services such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. These network improvements are helping to drive improved customer experience, as reflected in page load times for mobile users at the World Cup™ accessing Facebook, with median page load times for the social network of well under 2 seconds on 4G networks, and below 1.5 seconds with 5G. Video streaming start times, which were 2.3 seconds on 4G networks, improve to 1.7 seconds on 5G networks.

We’ll continue to examine network performance at the FIFA World Cup™, as it moves towards the final game on December 18.

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Mark Giles | December 5, 2022

The United States — Ripe for Converged Networks

Key messages

Moves by mobile operators in the U.S. to offer fixed-wireless home broadband services are further blurring the lines between fixed and mobile networks. Cable operators in the U.S. are responding to this competitive challenge by driving the U.S. market further towards convergence, in the form of fixed-mobile bundling. This trend is driving greater competition in the market, lower prices, and more choice for consumers.
Speedtest Intelligence® data shows opportunities for cable companies and the big-three national operators to leverage positions of strength in one access technology to cross-sell to consumers and drive adoption of bundled services.
U.S. operators should look to European operators’ experiences with service bundling, where they have been shown to reduce churn and offer ARPU uplift opportunities, but require operators shift from a focus purely on price, to driving improvements in the consumer experience.
Fixed and mobile networks are already being used in tandem. For example in the U.K. BT includes a SIM within its Halo routers to offer redundancy to its fixed broadband customers. And already in the U.S. Comcast utilizes its XFINITY Wi-Fi hotspot network to provide high capacity coverage for its customers, allowing it to improve network performance in areas where 5G signal typically struggles to penetrate, while also offloading mobile traffic to its fixed network.
Looking to the future, we anticipate more strategic moves to drive improved consumer experiences as the convergence of fixed and mobile networks continues. The emerging set of Wireless Wireline Convergence (WWC) standards being developed by 3GPP and the BBF offer up some unique capabilities, but as ever, vendor and operator support will be key.

Blurring the lines between fixed and mobile networks

Fixed and mobile networks are becoming increasingly complementary, extending the reach of internet connectivity, performance, and reliability. Fixed networks support wireless devices through Wi-Fi offload in the home and via public and operator Wi-Fi access points, often in locations where cellular signals face propagation challenges. Additionally, wireless networks can provide cellular redundancy to fixed broadband services, often via a SIM added to the router.

Cable companies have offered mobile services for some time now via MVNO agreements, (Cox is set to be the latest example), and are able to utilize their Wi-Fi hotspot networks to offer greater coverage and capacity to subscribers. Ookla® data indicates that for markets such as the U.S. that have widespread fixed broadband penetration, mobile users spend approximately 75% of time on average connected to Wi-Fi networks, as opposed to wireless networks. This number ranged from a low of 67.5% for T-Mobile, to a high of 80.0% for cable operator Comcast’s XFINITY. This helped XFINITY and Spectrum rank as fastest overall mobile service across their respective service areas when considering 5G and Wi-Fi access combined.

On the flip side of the coin, the growth in fixed-wireless access (FWA), particularly via higher-speed 5G spectrum, offers an alternative to existing fixed networks. In the U.S., fixed wireless is already being used to cover locations that would be too costly to lay fiber to reach, and is also being offered as a competitive alternative to existing fixed networks. Both Verizon and T-Mobile have championed this approach, and are seeing strong growth in their respective fixed-wireless customer bases, although fixed wireless still represents a small proportion of overall fixed broadband subscribers.

Fixed and wireless technologies also play an important role in today’s backhaul networks, with fiber instrumental in extending the reach and capacity of mobile networks, and microwave point-to-point wireless connections still common in many parts of the world for backhaul. Throw satellite connectivity into the mix via the growth of LEO constellations, and it’s clear that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for providing universal connectivity — a blend of technologies is required.

Fixed-mobile bundling — initially focused on cost savings for consumers

The growth of fixed-mobile (convergent) bundles in the U.S. is occurring amidst a slowing of the global economy, with inflation running into double digits in many markets, pushing them towards a possible recession. This could well spur the adoption of fixed-mobile bundles in the U.S., paralleling the experience of many European markets during the last prolonged economic downturn which began in 2008. In this economic environment, a number of European operators introduced convergent bundles, offering them at an overall discount to the discrete underlying services.

While not prevalent in all European markets, fixed-mobile bundles have taken hold in many key markets, championed by regional powerhouses including Telefonica and Orange. Orange even goes so far as to highlight convergence as the “bedrock of our strategy,” and has pursued M&A across Europe in order to combine fixed and mobile assets in order to pursue a convergent strategy.

Initially, European operators pursuing convergent bundles saw a reduction in churn, as including more services within a bundle for multiple people in a household made these customers stickier. Over time, operators looked to drive increased ARPU by including additional services, particularly broadcast television and video streaming. For consumers, fixed-mobile bundles also offer managerial benefits, adding the convenience of a single bill for all telecoms services in a household and gives the account holder more control over telecoms expenditure as a result.

More recently, in European markets where fixed and mobile bundles have become commonplace, we’re seeing moves to expand the value offered to customers, to avoid ARPU erosion. For Movistar, this included a recent rebrand of its Fusion offering to MiMovistar, and a move to include services such as health, gaming, and security. The key lesson for U.S. telcos is to avoid a race to the bottom that will harm margins and ultimately investment. Instead, telcos should focus on extending the value delivered from fixed-mobile bundles. For cable companies with MVNO agreements driving Wi-Fi offload for their mobile customers can help improve performance. It also keeps wholesale costs down, allowing them to be more aggressive with their mobile pricing.

U.S. fixed-mobile service overlap — battle lines drawn

To estimate the current overlap in fixed and mobile subscriptions by provider and look at bundling opportunities within the U.S., we used Speedtest Intelligence data to show the share of Speedtest® samples for mobile devices conducted via wireless networks versus Wi-Fi. Cable operators Spectrum (Charter) and XFINITY (Comcast) show very high degrees of overlap, as explained by their sales model where mobile is not offered as a standalone service, but only as an add-on to their fixed broadband subscriptions services.

Overlap in fixed and wireless subscriptions (Q3 2022 | Speedtest^® Data)

WIRELESS	WIRELINE AT&T	T-Mobile	Verizon	Spectrum	XFINITY	Other
AT&T Wireless	20.5%	0.1%	4.9%	21.7%	21.2%	31.6%
T-Mobile	11.2%	0.2%	7.8%	24.9%	26.1%	29.9%
Verizon Wireless	9.2%	0.1%	10.9%	23.1%	21.3%	35.3%
Spectrum	2.2%	0.1%	1.0%	85.7%	2.0%	9.1%
XFINITY	2.4%	0.1%	1.3%	2.1%	87.5%	6.7%

Three main takeaways emerge from the data:

AT&T has a larger wireline footprint than Verizon, and this shows over 20% of its wireless customers also access AT&T’s fixed broadband service according to Ookla Speedtest data versus Verizon’s 10.9%. Both companies have opportunities to drive further mobile uptake among their fixed user bases.
T-Mobile has a greenfield opportunity for fixed wireless, where strong 5G network performance should help it capitalize on both mobile and fixed net additions.
Sizeable proportions of the big three’s mobile user base (in excess of 40%) accessing fixed Wi-Fi via either Charter or Comcast, represent a significant opportunity for the cable companies to expand their mobile user bases.

Beyond fixed-mobile bundling — driving experiential improvements to network service

The advent of 5G, alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, has helped drive growth in the use of data intensive services including video calling, video streaming, and mobile gaming. As these services continue to grow in popularity, and as consumers begin to demand more immersive extended reality (XR) experiences that push the boundaries of today’s networks, so operators will need to improve the performance of both fixed and mobile networks, while also looking to opportunities for network convergence to support enhanced service experiences and reduced operational costs.

High-throughput 5G service utilizes higher frequency spectrum bands than has been used for previous generations of mobile technology. These spectrum bands have lower propagation properties, particularly in-building, mandating that operators further densify their networks to offer consistent performance. Operator Wi-Fi hotspot networks can offer an alternative to this, providing a secure fixed network connection in locations where 5G signals can often degrade. In the U.S., cable companies have also begun to offer differentiated network speeds to their mobile subscribers when connected to their Wi-Fi networks, provisioning faster network speeds to capable smartphones.

Standards bodies have also identified a need to help drive fixed-mobile convergence. The development of Wireless Wireline Convergence (WWC) standards by 3GPP and the Broadband Forum (BBF) seeks to allow operators to converge existing fixed and mobile technology stacks using a common 5G core network. In doing so, operators will move to a single control plane for fixed and mobile sessions, enabling them to offer customers seamless connectivity via fixed and mobile access while also allowing them to aggregate the performance of both access networks to help drive enhanced performance and reliability. In doing so, this will allow operators to streamline the set of network functions and processes required to operate their networks, while also allowing them to simplify their Operational and Business Support Systems (OSS and BSS).

Leading operators such as Deutsche Telekom and BT are actively moving in this direction, with Deutsche Telekom in September conducting a proof of concept lab trial of WWC standards to steer traffic from a 5G residential gateway and route traffic along the entire wireline access chain to the core network. According to Ahmed Hafez, VP of network convergence at Deutsche Telekom, “convergence will allow us to optimize our network assets and deliver new, differentiated service experiences to our customers regardless of the access used.” BT has also signaled its intent to move to a single transport and core network serving both fixed and mobile services as it looks to accelerate the convergence of its mobile and fixed services in the U.K. under a single brand, EE.

While it’s clear that pioneers in the industry are looking to push the envelope on fixed-mobile convergence, there’s still a long way to go. We look forward to more operator trials of WWC standards, but ultimately it will also require the vendor ecosystem to integrate these standards in their product roadmaps to help spur adoption. If you’re interested to find out more about Ookla Speedtest Intelligence, and its wealth of fixed and mobile consumer initiated data and insights, please get in touch.

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Mark Giles

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Sylwia Kechiche | November 30, 2022

A Gigabit Society Requires a Data-Driven Regulatory Approach: Key Takeaways From Ookla's Southeastern Europe Regulatory Summit

Ookla®, in partnership with Ibis Solutions, hosted the inaugural Southeast Europe Regulatory Summit on November 4, 2022 in Belgrade, Serbia with participants from across Europe and a guest speaker from Saudi Arabia. The summit examined how crowdsourced data can support regulators and drive effective policymaking while reflecting on the regional telecommunication landscape, its challenges, opportunities, and how to ensure consumers have good quality of experience (QoE).

Key Takeaways

Spectrum is key when it comes to 5G. CST shared how data-driven, evidence-based policy decisions enabled a 5G rollout.
The European Commission’s goal of gigabit connectivity is one of the driving forces behind the rollout of fiber networks. So far, the progress is mixed across the region in terms of fiber network rollout and adoption.
Good quality data and sharing best practices is essential for effective policymaking. Crowdsourced data helps measure progress and assess real service performance experienced by end users.

A data-driven approach to 5G rollouts will bear fruit

The majority of countries across southeast Europe have launched 5G, including Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia. However, Serbia, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are still yet to auction dedicated 5G spectrum.

Within Southeast Europe, 5G Availability (the proportion of users of 5G capable devices who spend the majority of their time on 5G networks) reached almost 50% in Cyprus. Yet, four out of seven countries had 5G Availability below 10% in Q3 2022. 5G performance depends heavily on the 5G spectrum holding. As a rule of thumb, the larger the share of the C-Band spectrum, the faster the 5G download speed, while access to low-band spectrum has an impact on 5G Availability.

Therefore, having a spectrum roadmap is key to ensuring effective spectrum assignment. Salem Askar, a Senior Specialist in the QoS Department at CST (Communication, Space and Technology Commission), shared how data-driven decision-making informed the development of its spectrum strategy. This resulted in Saudi Arabia improving its mobile performance, and its ranking in the Ookla’s Global Index – from 105th place in September 2017 to 10th place in October 2022.

CST committed to a new, evidence-based approach to spectrum assignment drawing from technology trials and consultations with network operators, device and chipset manufacturers, infrastructure providers, end users, and network data providers, including Ookla. Most notably, CST needed data to expand its analysis of spectrum usage, the performance of various bands, and existing network infrastructure to see where investments had been made within certain bands (e.g., extra capacity in specific bands in urban areas and coverage of rural areas using adequate bands). If you would like to find out more, read this case study. Looking ahead, CST properties revolve around the improvement of citizens’ lives by giving them access to minimum speeds of 100 Mbps, releasing more spectrum for 5G and beyond.

However, spectrum is just one part of the 5G puzzle. Konstantinos Masselos, President of Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission and BEREC Vice Chair 2022, shared that BEREC’s focus extends beyond 5G spectrum allocation. That includes following up on developments for a number of relevant issues covering the whole 5G ecosystem (i.e., end user, interoperability, new business models and value chains, privacy, Quality of Service (QoS), roaming, roll out, security, state aid) and identifying regulatory challenges. A key focus area is sustainability and how to make networks not only faster but also more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. BEREC’s work on 5G aims to contribute to the maximum benefit for end users in terms of availability, pricing, quality, security, and other choices.

Regulatory incentives propel the move to fiber

The demand for gigabit-capable broadband access increased over the past few years, mainly due to the increasing number of people working from home and the growth in service availability. According to Speedtest Intelligence®, Romania had the fastest 5G speeds in Q3 2022, with a median fixed download speed of 131.96 Mbps and 94.29 Mbps upload speed. These speeds are not a surprise given that Romania has one of the highest Fiber to the Home/ Building (FTTP/B) penetration rates across the region — nearly 54% of households — which is partially driven by government-backed fixed infrastructure projects such as RoNet, and the special attention given to rural and disadvantaged areas. Slovenia is also progressing well in terms of access to fiber, thanks to the Slovenian government’s introduction of a next-generation broadband network development plan, which is in line with the EU’s ‘gigabit society’ plan. It is aiming to provide internet access to all households in rural or urban areas with at least 100 Mbps that can be upgradable to gigabit speed. Serbia’s growth in FTTP/B connections is gaining pace as well, with Yettel’s entry into the fixed segment in November 2021 resulting in increased market competition. Pavle Mijuskovic, Deputy Executive Director, the Department for Electronic Communication Networks and Services (EKIP) of Montenegro shared that (FTTH/B) networks covered around 70% of households, while the real subscriptions are much lower — only about 45% of households. The need to close the gap in rural areas is something that Montenegro focuses on now. Mr. Mijuskovic also highlighted that widespread fiber rollout necessitated a change in the way infrastructure is deployed: putting cables underground at lower power grades and reusing the post or street lights to deliver fiber to households.

During the panel session, Mr. Masselos shared his view that “development of broadband to the home is a very important topic,” with regulatory actions in place to achieve a target of all homes across the EU to have ‘gigabit connectivity’ by 2030. He brought attention to the fact that in Greece there is a significant gap between fiber rollout and adoption. Despite improvements in Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) coverage, which stood at roughly 20% of households in 2021 (an increase from 7% in 2019) the actual take-up is in the low single-digit partially because of the higher cost of fiber subscription. Greece is also looking to promote open wholesale networks to increase coverage and prevent overbuilding of fiber networks. With regards to FTTH deployment and adoption, Mr. Masselos emphasized the need to formulate policies that will encourage investment and will also support the demand side so that fiber infrastructure is accessible and economically viable in the long term. In addition to being available, services over FTTH/FTTP must also be competitively priced.

The power of data in understanding a digital divide

The vast majority of operators in the region plan to retire copper networks and migrate their DSL users over to FTTH/P. As such, fiber investment will remain a priority for telcos and will often be supported by subsidies, EU funding, and co-investment. At the European level, the policy goal is for every European household to have access to high-speed internet coverage by 2025 and gigabit connectivity by 2030. Regulators, alongside BEREC and the European Commission, work to promote connectivity and enable access to high-speed networks. Therefore, it’s vital to understand the real service performance as experienced by end users. Bryan Darr, Vice President, Smart Communities at Ookla shared how crowdsourced data can be used by governments to help them measure progress.

Darr shared a snapshot of fixed network performance in Central Serbia by layering the speeds with the fastest speeds on top, providing evidence of where broadband speeds are being met and where they are not (see map above). Whereas fiber penetration is increasing across Serbia, there are still areas where users do not experience speeds beyond 25 Mbps (red dots on the map). What our data reveals is that good performance tends to be centered in urban and metropolitan areas. Similarly, the OECD report “Bridging Digital Divides in G20 Countries” found that in rural areas of the EU and G-20 countries, fixed broadband download speeds are close to 50% slower than speeds in cities and urban hubs.

Similarly, using Ookla Cell Analytics™ data we can identify poor coverage areas and assist with network planning to optimize mobile network connectivity and performance. It all starts with understanding service availability, including signal strength (RSRP), signal quality (RSRQ), and areas of high demand. Customer throughput depends on capacity; even though there might be a high signal strength and good network quality, the actual speed is determined by network capacity which depends on the number of devices within this location.

Good quality data and sharing best practices is the best tool in the regulator’s arsenal

Mr. Masselos shared that good quality data is a necessity for efficient policymaking and EETT has done work in this space already. For example, by looking at broadband prices versus performance and QoS across Greece and other countries, “we see these comparisons cannot be one dimensional, but two dimensional. I feel we need to do more of these types of analyses and develop relevant methodologies.” Mr. Askar of CST echoed this sentiment by saying that to achieve goals regulators ought to bring knowledge from different parts of the world. Pavle Mijušković of EKIP stressed that to overcome the digital divide there is a need to use a combination of all available technologies to provide services. Furthermore, he suggested the improvement of capacities and capabilities will help drive digital transformation and strengthen the digital awareness of society.

Ookla’s Co-Founder and CEO Doug Suttles summed up the event by saying that a hidden benefit Ookla can provide is to “figure out the best practices, as relationships with operators in 150 countries help a lot on that. Having regulators exchange knowledge on how to create better connectivity for cost-effectiveness, is vital to our industry.” Our event partner, Ibis Solutions, a software products vendor in the southeast Europe region, also underlined the potential of Ookla metrics for regulatory agencies such as public portals with new features. Vladimir Rakić, Software Development Director at Ibis Solutions summarized the summit by saying “attending regulatory agencies recognized how crowd metrics could help address massive outages or network performance issues that further result in a huge amount of user complaints.”

Ookla’s mission is to measure, understand, and help improve connected experiences. Events such as this regulatory summit help with the cross-pollination of ideas and best practices. Telecom regulators who attend Ookla’s future summits will also be able to facilitate discourse on related topics, challenges, ideas on elevating the subscriber experience in their respective regions, and how to improve their country’s rank on the Speedtest Global Index™. If you are a regulator looking to make more data-driven, evidence-based policy decisions, inquire here.

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Sylwia Kechiche

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Sylwia Kechiche | August 15, 2022

5G in Nordics: Sweden Leads on Speeds, Denmark on 5G Availability

The Nordic region performs well when it comes to median mobile download speeds according to the Speedtest Global Index™. In June 2022, Norway took the top spot in the world in terms of median download speed with 129.96 Mbps, Denmark was eighth place (100.25 Mbps), Sweden ranked 17th and Finland 22nd. Having ambitious digital strategies in terms of bringing high-speed networks to households and businesses, those countries look to 5G too as a driver of digital transformation. To achieve that and enable collaboration across the region, the prime ministers of the Nordic countries signed a letter of intent (LOI) April 2018, which stated that the Nordic region should be the “first and most integrated 5G region in the world,” and the region should become a “common Nordic 5G space.” In this article we examine 5G performance across the region, including the state of 5G spectrum awards, private networks status, 5G mobile performance and 5G Availability at the country and city-level.

Key takeaways

Sweden led the Nordics in 5G median download speeds in Q2 2022, which is partially driven by the Swedish digitalization strategy.
Using Speedtest Intelligence®, we compared 5G Availability, which refers to the percentage of users on 5G-capable devices that spend most of the time with access to 5G networks. In Q2 2022, Denmark’s 5G Availability stood at 36.4%, Norway at 23.3%, Finland at 21.0% while Sweden at 6.2%.
Swedish operators — Telenor, 3, and Tele 2 — topped the median 5G download rankings in Q2 2022, YouSee Denmark inched away in 5G Availability with 61.3% 5G Availability.
The Swedish capital of Stockholm had the fastest median 5G download speed across five cities, whereas Oslo, the capital of Norway, had the best 5G Availability.
Nordic 5G performance benefits from having allocated low-band and mid-band spectrum.
Operators and enterprises in the Nordics look to 5G as a tool to enable digital transformation.

Sweden leads on median 5G download speed

We compared 5G performance using Speedtest Intelligence data from Q2 2022 in the Nordic countries against other European countries. The Nordic region performs well in this ranking, with Sweden first amongst the countries in the chart above. Noteworthy is the fact that only Nordic countries have digital strategies in place, as outlined below, that shape their strategies around networks rolled out to meet their digital goals. While most of these policies focus on fixed broadband, in Sweden 5G was identified as a key technology in Sweden’s quest to achieve 100% high speed broadband access.

Denmark’s 5G Availability on par with the Netherlands

Using Speedtest Intelligence, we compared 5G Availability, which refers to the percentage of users on 5G-capable devices that spend most of the time with access to 5G networks, across Nordic countries and a select sample of European markets. In Q2 2022, Denmark’s 5G Availability stood at 36.4%, Norway at 23.3%, Finland at 21%, and Sweden at 6.2%. Both Denmark and Netherland benefit from being flatter and more densely populated, which in turn results in a greater ability to expand 5G coverage. Other Scandinavian countries have much lower population density than Denmark (139.9 people per km2): Sweden (25.5), Finland (18.2), and Norway (17.7). Denmark has been active in prompting 5G adoption, case in point the Danish Energy Agency published a 5G Action Plan for Denmark, which zeroes in on four building blocks: frequencies, roll-out, regulation, and use cases as foundations for a successful roll-out and utilization of 5G.

Swedish operators top the median 5G download rankings in Q2 2022, YouSee Denmark inched away in the 5G Availability

The majority of the 14 players operating across the four countries launched commercial 5G networks in 2020, apart from Elisa Finland (July 2019), Telia Finland (October 2019), and Ice Norway (November 2021).

Sweden tops the charts for 5G speeds but lags on 5G Availability

Swedish operators perform well when it comes to 5G speeds, not so much on the 5G Availability, which was below 10% as of Q2 2022. 5G Availability is a function of 5G network coverage, 5G tariffs, and 5G-capable devices adoption. Operators are taking steps to increase across all of these components. According to Swedish communications regulator PTS, just over one million subscriptions used the 5G mobile network in 2021 (four times more than a year before), which is equivalent to 8% of all mobile subscriptions. Operators are intensifying their network investments to expand 5G network coverage as follows:

Net4Mobility is a joint venture between Tele2 and Telenor. Tele2 and Telenor Sweden committed to intensifying 5G network roll out during 2022, planning to extend the reach of Net4Mobility to 90% of Swedish population by the end of 2023 and the rest in 2024.
Telia Sweden in collaboration with its long standing partner, Ericsson, plans to match 5G coverage to that of its 4G network by 2025. The short term target is to cover more than 90% of the population with 5G by 2023; in the longer term extending to 90% geographical and over 99% population coverage.
3 Sweden has a few milestones over the next couple of years: finalizing 5G deployment on its existing network in 2022, upgrading its core to 5G for lower latency (2022-23), network expansion and densification (2023-24), and rolling out network slicing to serve enterprises needs such as hospitals, airports, and factories.

3 Sweden is also taking steps to allow customers to test and become familiar with its 5G network during 2022. It offers at no additional cost its newly launched services called “3Fullfart” that uses the 3.5GHz band, priced at a cost of SEK49 ($5.13) a month.

Denmark performs better than others in 5G data experience but yet to match Swedish operators’ 5G speeds

Networks have evolved to become increasingly complex, catering to both the wealth of new services and increasing consumer demand for data. 5G heightened this complexity, therefore it is ever so important to be able to measure the actual end user experience. To achieve that, CellRebel® developed a scoring framework to allow its customers to benchmark different services and to combine various KPIs into composite KPIs and scores. The 5G Data Experience score consists of real user experience for four different popular services: web browsing, YouTube video streaming, gaming, and video conferencing.

YouTube Video Streaming Score is a weighted average of the proportion of samples with video start time better than two seconds, those that had no rebuffering events, and had a video resolution better than 240P.
Web Browsing Score is a percentage of web pages loaded in less than 1.5 seconds.
Gaming Score is a weighted average of the percentage of samples with a gaming latency better than 60 ms, proportion of those with no packet loss, and percentage of measurement samples with a jitter lower than 10 ms.
Video Conferencing Score is a weighted average of the percentage of samples with latencies of less than 60 ms to popular video conferencing services infrastructure, the percentage of measurements with no packet loss, and the percentage of measurement samples with a jitter lower than 10 ms.

All of these measures are combined into an individual score where 0 is the worst experience and 100 corresponds to the best experience. Looking at the four Nordics markets, Denmark had the best 5G Data Experience score in Q2 2022 but other countries are not far behind. Denmark’s good performance is not a surprise if we consider the fact that it took the top spot across the 27 EU Member States, according to the European Commission’s 2021 edition of the “Digital Economy and Society Index” (DESI). Denmark came first in connectivity, ranked second in integration of digital technology and in digital public services, and fourth in human capital.

Danish operators continue to upgrade their network taking advantage of their spectrum assignments.

Speedtest Intelligence data puts YouSee Denmark as the operator that had best 5G Availability across the Nordics in Q2 2022, with a 61.3% 5G Availability. YouSee (part of TDC Group) partners with TDC NET for 5G network, a legally separate wholesale network operator within TDC Group, which reached 99% of Denmark with 5G in 2021 compared to 78% in 2020 as reported in its 2021 Annual Report.
3 Denmark stated that 60% of its network was 5G-enabled in July 2022, as it continues the upgrade of its 5G network using 2100 MHz and 3.5 GHz frequencies, as well as modernizing 4G.
TT Network (TTN), a joint network between Telia and Telenor, started upgrading the network to 5G following the mid-band spectrum award. In 2021 it upgraded 1,000 mobile masts and an additional 1,400 masts will be upgraded during 2022 out of a total 4,300 sites.
Telenor Denmark’s plans to shut down its 3G network in 2022, which operates using spectrum in the 900 MHz and 2.1 GHz band and refarm the frequencies for 5G. The operator also plans to deploy 5G SA and address the enterprise use case through the recently created separate division for private networks. The first example of such collaboration is connecting robots via a Telenor private 4G network rather than via Wi-Fi for Danish company Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR).

Finland’s 5G coverage is on the rise, other building blocks such as 5G tariffs and handsets need to fall into place to increase 5G Availability

The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, reported that at the end of 2021, 5G network coverage has extended to 82% of Finish households (a six percentage point increase over the previous year). At the same time, 4% of mobile data was transmitted over the 5G network, which means that only a small proportion have so far started using subscriptions or devices supported by the 5G network despite the increase in 5G coverage. Finnish operators are working to increase customer access to smartphones but also working on enabling new use cases with 5G SA.

Elisa’s 5G network reached over 80% of the Finnish population in more than 180 municipalities as of the end of Q2 2022. The operator also reported that 5G smartphones accounted for 10% of smartphones in Q1 2022 compared to 7% in Q1 2021. In June 2022, Elisa in partnership with Nokia and Qualcomm conducted a 5G live demonstration at the Nokia Arena in Tampere in Finland achieving uplink speeds of 2.1 Gbps utilizing Nokia’s AirScale base station in 26 GHz mmWave spectrum, seemingly as the first operator across the region.
In November 2021, Telia Finland launched the first commercially available 5G standalone (SA) core network in the Nordic and Baltic region, creating the opportunity for advanced 5G use cases and a strengthened position in the Enterprise segment. According to Telia’s Q2 Report, the operator achieved a 70% population coverage in Finland, and in Norway.
DNA reported that during the first half of the year, almost 80% of all the phones sold by DNA were already 5G-capable, compared to just over 50% in 1H 2021. Following the activation of the 700 MHz frequency band for 5G use, the 5G network coverage extended to 70% of the population at the end of June 2022. Although all DNA 5G base stations are connected to a standalone 5G core network, the preparation for the 5G SA commercial offering to customers is still underway.
Suomen Yhteisverkko Oy (Finnish Shared Network) has been building a mobile network on behalf of DNA and Telia in northern and eastern Finland. The construction of the Finnish Shared 5G Network started in 2021 and its coverage area was extended towards the inland of Finland. During the spring of 2022, the Finnish Shared Network carried out large-scale 5G network deployment on the 700 MHz frequency in South Savo region, thanks to which 5G coverage has also spread to sparsely populated areas.

Norway shines the brightest when it comes to mobile speeds with good 5G performance

Norwegian operators perform well on 5G speeds and 5G Availability, without being the top providers. Yet, Norway took the first spot in June’s Speedtest Global Index performance ranking for global median mobile speeds, which points to a strong 4G performance and a potential challenge Norwegian operators face in trying to convince its customer base to upgrade to 5G. However, according to Nkom’s “Internet in Norway — Annual Report 2022” 5G traffic is growing as mobile operators continue to roll out 5G and introduce 5G-enabled smartphones. In Q1 2022, around 25% of connected handsets were ready for 5G technology, and 5G connections account for around 5% of total internet traffic. Additionally, operators are expanding into 700 MHz and 2100 MHz bands; during the spectrum auction the winning bidders were able to obtain a discount of up to NOK 40 million ($4 million) if they agreed to certain coverage obligations, e.g. Telia to cover “selected railway lines” and Telenor to cover major roadways including “European roads and the coastal road from Mo i Rana to Bodo.”

Telenor Norway is upgrading its 8,500 base stations, with over 2,500 already modernized resulting in a 5G coverage reaching 50% of population. The operator plans to complete the 5G rollout in 1H 2024, with a total number of 9,000 base stations. Telenor was the fastest 5G operator in Norway in terms of 5G mobile network speed in Q1-Q2 2022, but the operator is also eyeing an enterprise opportunity. Telenor Norway set its sight to become the leading player in private mobile networks in Norway, a business opportunity which it values at over NOK 5 billion in 2025. To achieve that it will provide consultancy services for industrial 5G networks edge computing and private mobile networks. It has begun a trial with Yeti Move to run automated bulldozers at Gardermoen Airport.
Telia Norway plans to have nationwide 5G network coverage by 2023. At the end of Q2 2022, 70% of the population was within its 5G network’s reach. The operator began tests in the 26 GHz band with Ericsson aiming to provide service at almost 4 Gbps. Telia targets the corporate market with the 26 GHz spectrum and is currently testing different use cases for companies across various industries.
Despite being a late entrant into the market, Norway’s third mobile network operator – Ice Norway — recorded a 20.8% 5G Availability. Initially, the operator launched in Oslo across 14 cell sites using 2100 MHz and 700 MHz spectrum bands, which was accessible for most 5G-enabled Android phones. In the short term, the coverage will be extended to the country’s 4-5 largest cities with a longer term plan of reaching 75% population coverage. Alongside other Norwegian operators Ice had opted to undertake regional coverage obligation to receive a discount on the spectrum license fee. Stockholm was the fastest city, Oslo had the best 5G Availability.

Stockholm was the fastest city, Oslo had the best 5G Availability

Stockholm came first across five cities in the Nordics in Q2 2022, with 3 and Telenor achieving mind-blowing download speeds of over 600 Mbps at 637.14 Mbps and 614.48 Mbps, respectively. It is not surprising that Stockholm performs well as it is often a testing ground for innovation — hosting a number of tech startups and scale-ups (such as Skype and Spotify) and one in ten people working in the digital tech sector.

During Q1-Q2 2021 Oslo had the title of the fastest 5G of any world capital across 15 world capitals we analyzed in this article. While this is no longer the case, Oslo took the top spot for 5G Availability across the five Nordic cities in Q2 2022.

Nordic 5G performance benefits from having allocated low-band and mid-band spectrum

Within Europe, the Nordics stand out on 5G performance. Part of this is because of 5G spectrum availability as all four of the Nordic countries on the continent have already assigned low-band and mid-band spectrum. This is ahead of the rest of Europe, as we have reflected on the 5G progress across Europe. Denmark and Finland had also awarded mmWave spectrum. In fact, Denmark scored 99% in the 5G readiness indicator and ranked first on 5G mobile-broadband coverage (with 80% of households covered) as per Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2021. Norway’s National Communications Authority (Nkom) and Sweden’s Post and Telecom Agency (PTS), are also looking to make spectrum available for 5G across low and mid-band spectrum.

Of course, 5G pioneer bands are not the only frequencies that operators use to deploy 5G, as operators shut down legacy networks, they can also refarm sub 3GHz frequencies for 4G or 5G. European operators tend to support 2G in the short term, phasing out 3G networks instead. The primary reason being long term M2M/IoT contracts with enterprises such as utility providers. In Norway and Sweden, a significant portion of smart meters already deployed are connected to 2G networks, therefore operators are obliged to support millions of 2G smart meters until the end of their lifecycle. Case in point: Telenor Norway switched off 3G in 2021 — five years ahead of their planned switch off of 2G, in fact all of the Norwegian operators have switched off 3G networks in 2021 and all of the Finnish operators plan to do so by 2023, while the Danish and Swedish will follow by 2025.

Operators and enterprises in the Nordics look to 5G as a tool to enable digital transformation

As 5G technology will go beyond pockets of high-speed mobile broadband to deliver low latency, high density, industry-specific applications that make use of cloud and edge technologies, it will also play a role in driving digital transformation. Digitization of different sectors of the economy is key to supporting sustainable development and climate goals. However, enterprise requirements differ. Some prefer to retain control over their networks, isolating them from the public network to address higher availability, lower latency, and enhanced privacy needs. We have commented on how the private networks landscape is developing in Europe here. Like other nations, the Nordics are also looking to private networks to address Industry 4.0 objectives as 5G plays an important role in the digital transformation and creating new services and solutions across a variety of sectors, especially manufacturing.

Nordic regulators created an encouraging environment for enterprises to deploy their own networks; all countries have already allocated spectrum for vertical use across mid- and high-frequency bands. It is worth noting that a vertical set aside is not the only option telecom regulators have at their disposal in addressing enterprise requirements. For example, the Finnish regulator in addition to allocating spectrum in the 2300-2320 MHz and 24.5-25.1 GHz band on a first-come, first-served basis, had also included a leasing option provision in the 3.5 GHz band license. Mobile operators are obliged to lease their spectrum assets: either participate in tenders for vertical contracts in localized areas or sub-license their spectrum to the vertical so they can build their own network.

However, simply assigning or making spectrum available to verticals isn’t enough to drive market adoption. Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) in its report on Private Mobile Networks released in June 2022, identified 794 organizations deploying private mobile networks. In terms of a number of private networks, the United States ranked first internationally, Germany was second, while Finland came in sixth (with 20 networks).

Finland actively promotes the development of 5G services, via 5G Momentum, driven by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom. The main target of the initiative is to bring together vertical industries stakeholders — Finnish companies, research organizations, and the public sector — to run 5G trials and develop new 5G solutions and use cases. On its home turf of Finland, Nokia has been working on a number of private LTE projects, together with edge connectivity provider Edzcom (formerly Ukkoverkot), port machinery maker Kalmar, and port operator Steveco, delivering private networks in the ports of Kokkola and Oulu, as well as Steveco Kotka harbor. Although mobile operators are no longer the de facto service providers, they are involved in delivery of private networks. We have collated a few recent deals with regards to private 5G networks in the region, which show a growing demand from enterprises and also increased operators involvement. Furthemore, despite the fact that the majority of private networks across the Nordics are currently LTE-only (55.3%), a growing proportion is 5G ready (LTE and 5G, 21%), with a few deployed as 5G from the get go.

Location	Partners	Solution	Details	Date
Finland	Edzcom and lighting company Signify	A private 5G wireless smart network in the city of Tampere	A long-term project to use the Tampere’s streetscape assets to create a high-performance wireless private network.	June 2022
Norway	Telia and the Norwegian Defense Materiel Agency	A private 5G network for the Armed Forces as part of a cooperation with the Defense Materiel Agency.	A pilot private and separate 5G mobile network to run alongside a military slice within Telenor’s commercial network.	June 2022
Norway	Telia and Herøya Industrial Park	A strategic cooperation within 5G and private mobile networks.	Telia will roll out a private mobile network on the new industrial spectrum 3.8-4.2 GHz and in the industrial park’s test laboratory there will be a separate 5G facility with the option of edge computing.	May 2022
Norway	Telenor and the Norwegian Defense Materiel Agency	A private autonomous 5G network will be established for the Armed Forces.	The partnerships involve planning, designing, developing, and operating a pilot on a mobile, autonomous private 5G network, which cooperates with a defense-specific network slice (‘Defense slice’) in the public mobile network.	May 2022
Sweden	Tele2 and X Shore	A private 5G network in X Shore newly built factory in Nyköping.	X Shore will use its 5G network to wirelessly connect production equipment to collect data and maintain and control production.	May 2022
Finland	Telia, Nokia and Digita	A 5G private network for Posiva Oy for the needs of the nuclear fuel disposal process in Eurajoki.	The private 5G network will enable the operation of an advanced automation system in the disposal process as well as improve safety and processes for employees.	May 2022
Sweden	Telia and Svenska Cellulosa AB (SCA)	Dedicated LTE private mobile network, which is a 5G ready.	Telia supplies an Enterprise Mobile Network (EMN) with Local Breakout, based on 4G equipment that can be upgraded to 5G. The solution leverages the scalability and operational reliability of the public mobile network, but with dedicated capacity.	January 2022

Operators in the region continue to roll out 5G but they are also casting their eyes on 5G SA, which offers the most benefits related to eMBB, massive IoT, and critical IoT. This in turn allows support for a wide range of devices and applications with more demanding bandwidth and latency requirements. The recent acquisition of CellRebel by Ookla® helps us expand our ability to help improve the end-user experience. We’re at a key inflection point in which the industry is recognizing the importance of assuring that any network expansion or optimization is actually tied to improving the customer experience. Looking only at network KPIs without understanding their impact on what the customer experiences isn’t enough. Network complexity, moreover, is only increasing with 5G deployments. With CellRebel, we will be able to better monitor and help improve not just radio networks but the entire end-to-end chain, which in turn leads to a stronger customer experience.

We’ll be watching 5G performance closely across the Nordics using Speedtest Intelligence. If you want to learn more about how Speedtest Intelligence can help you benchmark your 5G performance against competitors, please inquire here. If you are interested in how CellRebel can help you measure your network please inquire here.

About the Author

Sylwia Kechiche

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Sylwia Kechiche | October 3, 2022

Fibre AltNets Have an Important Role to Play in the U.K.'s Gigabit Future

Fixed broadband internet reached 86% of households at the end of 2021 in the U.K., and most customers have access to speeds of at least 30 Mbps. While seven large internet service providers (ISPs) dominate the United Kingdom fixed broadband market, the competitive landscape is vibrant, hosting dozens of alternative providers (AltNets). The U.K. fibre market also attracts new funding, which allows alternative providers to expand their fibre footprint. In fact, Ookla Speedtest Intelligence® data reveals smaller providers are sometimes the fastest across a few cities and counties.

Key Takeaways:

Speedtest Intelligence® data shows that across the United Kingdom in the first half of 2022, the median broadband download speed was 61.69 Mbps, with a median upload speed of 17.63 Mbps. Northern Ireland ranked first for median download speed at 65.21 Mbps, followed by England (62.40 Mbps), Scotland (57.13 Mbps), and Wales (49.71 Mbps).
Virgin Media O2 was the U.K.’s fastest fixed broadband provider, achieving a median download speed of 116.44 Mbps and an upload speed of 20.86 Mbps during Q1-Q2 2022. Across the 146 British counties we looked at, Speedtest Intelligence data showed that in Q1-Q2 2022 Virgin Media O2 was the clear speed leader, clocking the top download speeds in a whopping 71% of those counties. Virgin Media O2, having already upgraded its network to DOCSIS 3.1 plans to migrate to fibre to the premises (FTTP) over the next few years. The company is also planning to challenge Openreach in the wholesale market thanks to a new joint venture.
AltNets had the top speeds in London, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester, as well as across a number of counties. Public funding has helped facilitate the emergence of fibre ISPs in rural areas where fibre deployment is not commercially viable. Other AltNets like Hyperoptic are already well established, deploying and operating an FTTP network in areas with high density, which connects existing and new multi-dwelling buildings.

On the road to Gigabit connectivity

We looked at GDP and PPP in 2021 across 160 markets to see if there’s a correlation between wealth and internet speeds. While the correlation between fixed broadband speed and wealth was weak, many factors can determine a country’s internet performance like consumer demand, market competition, and regulatory stimulus. There are, however, some market exceptions like Chile, China, and Thailand, which outperform their economic peers. We discussed how Thailand’s supportive regulatory environment resulted in an increased fibre adoption in this article from 2021.

On the other hand, we would have expected some markets to transition to fibre more swiftly and provide users with faster median download speeds — but haven’t yet done so. The U.K. is one of those markets; according to Speedtest Global Index™ in August 2022, it ranked 55th, with a median fixed broadband download speed of 66.22 Mbps and 18.25 Mbps upload.

Northern Ireland was the speediest across the U.K.

Speedtest Intelligence® data shows the median fixed broadband download speed across the U.K. was 61.69 Mbps and the median upload speed was 17.63 Mbps in the first half of 2022. Looking at fixed speeds across the four British nations, Northern Ireland ranked first for fastest median download speed at 65.21 Mbps, followed by England (62.40 Mbps), Scotland (57.13 Mbps), and Wales (49.71 Mbps).

The number of homes that are gigabit-capable fixed broadband reached 19.3 million (66% of all U.K. homes) in January 2022, up from 13.7 million (47%) in September 2021. Most homes in the U.K. (97%) have access to “superfast broadband connection,” defined as download speeds of at least 30 Mbps. Yet, only a third can order a fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) service. However, much faster speeds are on the horizon with the government targeting 85% gigabit-capable coverage by 2025, and nationwide fixed broadband speeds of 1 Gbps or better by 2030.

To help realise this, the British government created the U.K. Gigabit Programme, investing a total of £5 billion, of which at least £1.2 billion will be available by 2025 to provide connectivity for areas currently difficult to reach. This in turn has made the fibre market attractive for investors to provide funding for smaller network providers that want to take advantage of this market opportunity. There are about 100 smaller, alternative providers (AltNets) offer FTTP broadband across the U.K. These AltNets come in various sizes, stages of maturity, and have different business models. With the upcoming changes to regulation, which will allow pension funds to invest into venture capital to back high-growth tech startups, even more funding could be poured into the sector.

Virgin Media O2 leads for fastest download speed at 116.44 Mbps

The U.K. market landscape is dynamic, with around 300 ISPs serving the market, but only a few offering nationwide coverage. The median fixed broadband speed in the U.K. is heavily influenced by the network technology provided by leading providers, which predominantly rely on copper-based network infrastructure supplied by Openreach. BT, Sky, Talk Talk, EE, Plusnet, and Vodafone all use Openreach, which itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BT Group but legally separated. Openreach has allocated £12 billion to upgrade its copper network to fibre. In August 2022, Openreach reported that its FTTP network passed over 8 million premises and is on target to provide fibre service to 25 million premises by the end of 2026.

The U.K.’s fastest broadband provider, Virgin Media O2, announced in December 2021 that it had completed its upgrade of its Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network to a gigabit-capable DOCSIS 3.1 technology. Not to be outdone in the fibre race, the operator is upgrading that network to XGS-PON technology, which it aims to complete by 2028. In its Q2 2022 earning release, Virgin Media O2 stated that Project Lightning, a £3 billion network expansion programme, has been accelerating and “the cumulative Lightning footprint is now 2.9 million, [and] the company is on-track to add over 500,000 Lightning premises in 2022.”

Virgin Media O2’s shareholders, Liberty Global and Telefónica, alongside investment firm, InfraVia Capital Partners, announced a new fibre joint venture with a war chest of £4.5 billion. The initial goal is to roll out fibre to new greenfield areas, expanding to 5 million homes outside of Virgin Media O2’s network by 2026, with the opportunity to expand to an additional 2 million homes by 2027. Virgin Media O2 will be the anchor tenant of the network, but the network will be available to other ISPs on a wholesale basis.

Alternative players making headway in the wholesale market

Although Openreach and Virgin Media O2 dominate the fibre landscape in terms of homes passed, roll-out plans, and scale of investment, CityFibre has emerged as the largest alternative wholesale fibre network provider. CityFiber recently secured a £4.9 billion debt package that will fund a network covering a third of the U.K. market (8 million homes) by 2025. CityFibre is backed by Goldman Sachs, Antin Infrastructure Partners, Mubadala Investment Company, and Interogo Holding.

The reason the provider attracts such large-scale capital investment is because its fibre expansion plans are based on a long-term purchasing commitment from multiple wholesale customers, including TalkTalk, Vodafone, Zen, and 30 other ISPs. Thanks to this business model, CityFibre, established in 2011, scaled from a small start up aimed at rescuing failed fibre projects in small U.K. cities, to becoming a network that has just passed 2 million premises.

Another wholesale fibre provider, Netomnia, was founded in 2019 by the former CEO of Community Fibre and has ambitious plans to reach 1 million premises by 2023. To date, Netomnia has already passed 210,000 premises and it expects to extend across 48 towns and cities by the end of this year. Along with ISP YouFibre, Netomnia has secured £418 million in funding since 2020: £123 million in funding in November 2021, followed by £295 new funding led by DigitalBridge Investment Management in April 2022. The provider is a registered supplier in the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS), which subsidises the cost of connecting a rural premise to a fibre network up to £1,500 per household and up to £3,500 for businesses.

AltNets had the top speeds in London, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester

Using Speedtest Intelligence data, we looked at the median fixed broadband speeds across key British cities during Q1-Q2 2022. Virgin Media O2 led for speed in eight of the 12 cities we looked at.

However, in three cities – Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester – Hyperoptic had the fastest fixed broadband speeds, achieving download and upload speeds in excess of 150 Mbps during Q1-Q2 2022.

Hyperoptic, which is backed by private equity house KKR, currently reaches 1 million homes and is planning to exceed 2 million by the end of the year. The ISP committed to invest £200 million in 2022 to expand its network by laying more than 1,500 kilometres of fibre to connect an additional 400,000 homes and businesses. Hyperopitc’s strategy is to deploy and operate an FTTP network in buildings and areas with high customer acquisition potential, targeting areas with high density and connecting existing homes and new multi-dwelling buildings. Hyperoptic has a particularly strong position in social housing and works with social housing providers and councils to provide some residents with free or reduced priced fibre broadband. Hyperoptic also targets new building developments as these properties will soon have to be connected per proposed changes in the Building Regulation 2010. Hyperoptic also has partnerships with over 250 developers across the country, providing them an opportunity to deliver service to new homes as they’re built. The provider also has working relationships with 16 of the 20 largest building development companies, including Barratt Developments.

AltNets and their various business models

Across the 146 British counties we looked at, Speedtest Intelligence data shows that Virgin Media O2 had the fastest median download speeds in a whopping 71% of those counties. BT ranked a distant second, posting the top speeds in about 10% of counties, while Vodafone led in five counties. Fibrus and Gigaclear registered the top speeds in four counties each, with TrueSpeed leading in two counties. Various other providers led in one county.

Vodafone is CityFibre’s anchor customer nationwide, and the two providers have a strategic partnership. In November 2021, Vodafone expanded on the partnership, increasing its long-term volume commitment from 12 to 285 cities, towns, and villages across 8 million homes CityFibre is targeting. Vodafone initially signed a partnership with CityFibre in November 2017, which allowed it to offer fibre to Vodafone’s customers starting in Milton Keynes. In fact, Vodafone was the fastest provider in Milton Keynes, offering a median download speed of 159.64 Mbps, along with a median upload speed of 125.24 Mbps.

Fibrus had the fastest median download speed in four counties in Northern Ireland. Fibrus was selected to deliver Project Stratum, under which Fibrus will receive £165 million to bring full fibre connectivity to 76,000 premises across Northern Ireland. An additional £32 million was awarded to bring another 8,500 harder to reach premises into the project’s scope. By the end of 2021, Fibrus passed over 100,000 premises with Project Stratum accounting for 20% of these connections. The rapid growth, network expansion, and customer acquisition resulted in an operating loss of £15.5 million for Fibrus, and £92 million invested into network build. Fibrus secured £220 million from a consortium of banks consisting of NatWest, ABN Amro, ING, Sabadell, LBBW, and the U.K. Infrastructure Bank to fund its roll out.

The vast amount of public funding facilitated the emergence of fibre ISPs focusing on rural areas where fibre deployment is not commercially viable. For instance, Fibrus was chosen to deliver fibre in Northern Ireland, where Project Stratum funds fibre broadband deployments in rural communities.

Gigaclear had the fastest download speed in four counties: Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, and Rutland. Gigaclear passed 300,000 premises across 22 English counties in May, 60% of its target of 500,000 premises by the end of 2023. The provider secured £525 million worth of debt financing in 2020 with Lloyds, NatWest, Santander, and ABN AMRO, and in 2021, received a £190 million investment boost partially co-financed by the new U.K. Infrastructure bank. It has been reported that Gigaclear is working with Rothschild bankers to raise £200-300 million of additional capital to fund its network deployment. In some communities, the provider holds contracts with local authorities to build fibre networks through the Building Digital U.K. (BDUK) programme. In these communities, Gigaclear invested £9 of its capital for every £1 of subsidy it received.

Giganet, which was the fastest in Portsmouth, was the single-fastest provider at the county-level at 305 Mbps, about three times faster than England’s national average. The provider focuses on underserved rural areas, including some connected premises that are part of the BDUK programme.

WightFibre operates only in the Isle of Wight, and it aims to create the U.K.’s first “Gigabit Island.” The company has completed the migration of legacy cable network customers to a new full fibre network in 2021, and it switched off its copper network in August 2022. WightFibre’s fibre network is available to over 40,000 premises, with a target of 60,000 premises by end of 2022; 75,000 by 2024; and ultimately covering 96% of the island’s premises (80,000).

Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN) is a registered Community Benefits society. It is building a fibre network in isolated or socially deprived rural communities and also helping similar community-driven network deployments in other areas. The community is directly involved in bringing the network to residents and those in surrounding premises, installing it and passing on the skills to the next community. The fibre network was initially deployed in the rural northwest of England and has gradually expanded from there. Any profits were reinvested, with 5% of profits being paid to members. BR4N was the fastest provider in Cumbria with a median download speed of 113.74 Mbps and 127.98 Mbps upload.

Although Voneus does not have the fastest download speed in any county, its business model is worth noting. Voneus begins by rolling out its Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solution, which has relatively low Capex and Opex, bringing communities quickly online, and then deploys FTTP. This allows the company to mitigate the risk associated with higher costs of fibre delivery in three ways:

Thanks to FWA Voneus already has an established base of customers that recognise the benefits of faster broadband.
Voneus takes advantage of the rural gigabit voucher scheme, securing a cost contribution toward every home connected.
This reduces cost and build time. Voneus has code power and PIA accreditation that allows it to utilise existing pole and duct infrastructure.

Over £30 billion investment into fibre

According to the Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA) report, alternative providers connected over 1 million FTTP premises, having passed 5.5 million premises with fibre at the end of 2021. Virgin Media O2 passed 16.8 million households with its gigabit-capable (but not yet FTTP) network, while Openreach reported 8 million premises within reach of its fibre network. Looking ahead, the report predicts that alternative providers will pass 30 million premises by 2025. It also notes that Virgin Media O2 plans to extend its network to 22 million premises, and Openreach has a target of 26 million by 2026. All of these ambitious plans exceed 31 million premises in the U.K. This means there will be some level of overbuild, especially in more densely populated areas. To deploy fibre networks, AltNets will spend £12 billion on fibre networks, in addition to £12 billion announced by BT Group, £2 billion planned by Virgin Media O2, and £5 billion coming from the government.

Challenges are few, labour force shortage is the most pressing

Translating the fibre investment into ROI will remain a challenge, particularly for some smaller, regional players, while increasing interest rates will put pressure on others. Industry consolidation is already in place with CityFiber buying Fiber Nation, Swish Fiber acquiring People’s Fiber, and Community Fiber buying Box Broadband. There is even more on the horizon, as fibre roll out requires significant capital investment and most players, apart from Hyperoptic, aren’t turning a profit.

Another challenge is the consumer take-up, meaning the proportion of subscriptions and homes passed. This is most efficiently done in areas that are greenfield, but where customer acquisition can be tricky. Hyperoptic recently introduced its Switch Now campaign, offering free broadband for up to nine months if a customer switches providers to Hyperoptic.

BT reported it has 26% take-up equivalent to 1.3 million FTTP customers, while CityFibre reported that in Milton Keynes, fibre take-up of 25% with other locations growing on a similar trajectory.

Access to sufficient physical and human resources to upgrade to full fibre is another challenge. To alleviate these hurdles, the U.K. government proposed that it could fast-track entry for thousands of foreign workers to help with the roll-out of gigabit broadband. We will continue to follow the fibre race in the U.K. and we will monitor what impact it will have on fixed broadband speeds. If you’d like to learn more about internet speeds and performance in other markets around the world, visit the Speedtest Global Index.

About the Author

Sylwia Kechiche

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Ookla | September 26, 2022

How TRC Jordan Ensures Reliable, Resilient Connectivity with Ookla Data [Case Study]

Jordan’s telecommunications regulatory authority, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), is responsible for monitoring quality of service standards and holding operators accountable for providing services, ensuring sustainable growth in the telecoms sector. When Jordan went into a nationwide lockdown in 2020, daily data traffic increased 31% as distance learning and teleworking took over. To ensure both connectivity and economic growth during this time, it was key to maintain the resilience of Jordan’s networks.

TRC uses Ookla data to monitor daily mobile network traffic, understand fixed internet availability, assess operator performance, ensure compliance, remotely monitor coverage and quality issues, and plan for the national rollout of 5G in Jordan.

Situation

As an early adopter of crowdsourced network intelligence, TRC Jordan helped inform the ITU-T efforts to standardize crowdsourcing, Recommendations ITU SG12 E.806 and ITU SG12 E.812. The emergence of the pandemic in 2020 only increased the need for crowdsourced data, as work became remote and it was no longer safe to send network testers into the field. In order to maintain network resilience and service continuity, TRC needed to remotely monitor performance and operator compliance with universal service commitments and national roaming migration agreements — as well as remotely handle consumer complaints about network coverage or quality.

Read the full case study here.

If you’re a regulator in the region, come say hi to us at GITEX (booth Z3-B40) October 10 – 14 to learn more about how you can use crowdsourced data to improve connectivity in your nation. Ookla will also be participating in an ITU Workshop in Jordan on “Telecommunication Service Quality” October 17 — 18.

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Sylwia Kechiche | September 19, 2022

MTN Performed Best Among Operator Groups in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article explores mobile performance in select countries across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We examine how four operator groups – Airtel, Orange, MTN, and Vodacom – mobile performance compared against each other during Q2 2022 across ten countries. In our previous analysis of the state of the 5G networks South Africa Spearheads 5G in Africa, but the Road is Long and Windy for Others we analyzed mobile performance on modern chipsets during 2021 (full year) across the African continent. We concluded that these are still early days for 5G across the region as challenges remain around affordability and infrastructure. In this article we focus our analysis on these four operator groups which command the majority (62%) of the SSA subscriptions. We also compare mobile performance on modern chipsets across ten countries. Those ten countries account for 59% of the region’s connections, including:

East Africa: Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda;
Southern Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Botswana;
West Africa: Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Nigeria.

Key messages:

Speedtest Intelligence® data shows that MTN South Africa delivered the fastest median download speeds across analyzed operators, at 65.95 Mbps in Q2 2022. However, Vodacom in Johannesburg was the fastest operator considering speeds across top cities, reaching 81.36 Mbps median download speed in Q2 2022. In South Africa, MTN outperformed Vodacom in terms of median mobile speeds during Q2 2022.
Comparing Airtel and MTN performance across the three countries they operate in, Airtel took the top spot in Nigeria, both in terms of median download and upload speed in Q2 2022, while in Uganda and Rwanda there were no winners. Such was the case in Botswana too, where there was no winner between Mascom and Orange.
In Côte d’Ivoire, MTN took the market lead versus Orange in Q2 2022, whereas in Guinea, the situation was reversed and Orange took the top spot.
Vodacom subsidiary Safaricom won the accolade in Kenya vis a vis Airtel, in Tanzania there was no clear winner as Vodacom won the download speed and Airtel the upload.
In the DRC, which is host to three of the operator groups, there was no winner overall, although Orange was the top player in terms of download speeds.
During Q2 2022, South African network performance has been affected by load shedding, which resulted in consumer reporting not having signal and access to mobile internet according to Downdetector®.

MTN South Africa delivered the fastest median download speed in Q2 2022

Using Speedtest Intelligence® data we compared mobile performance in Q2 2022 on modern chipsets across 21 operators. Our results show that median download speeds ranged between 2.89 Mbps (MTN Guinea) and 65.95 Mbps (MTN South Africa). Median upload speeds varied between 1.55 Mbps (MTN Guinea) and 14.84 Mbps (Airtel Uganda).

We can clearly see the impact that 5G has on overall performance as South African operators came first thanks to having 5G networks in place. MTN South Africa was well ahead of the rest of operators, despite facing challenges with load shedding, with median download speed of 65.95 Mbps, followed by Vodacom South Africa with a median download speed of 48.70 Mbps. If we take 5G out of the equation, Safaricom Kenya was the fastest operator among the analyzed operators.

Vodafone in Johannesburg stole the show

When it comes to mobile speeds in capital cities, it is not surprising that cities that have 5G networks came top of the list. As such, Johannesburg led the pack, with a median download speed of 66.54 Mbps, ahead of Cape Town at 49.22 Mbps. Vodacom got ahead of MTN in Johannesburg and was the fastest operator across 12 cities we analyzed, with a median download speed of 81.36 Mbps in Q2 2022 compared to 73.83 Mbps in Q1 2022. MTN was faster in Cape Town. Taking 5G out of the equation, Orange in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, achieved median download speeds of 39.46 Mbps.

MTN got ahead of Orange, Airtel, and Vodacom

Using Speedtest Intelligence data for Q2 2022, we compared mobile performance on modern chipsets and 4G Availability in the countries where Airtel, Orange, Vodacom, and MTN operate.

MTN outperformed Orange in Côte d’Ivoire and Vodacom in South Africa, both in terms of median download and upload speeds. While MTN had better download speed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Rwanda MTN performed better than Airtel with regards to median download speed. Orange took the top spot in Guinea, Airtel in Nigeria, and Safaricom in Kenya. In the rest of the countries, the difference in mobile performance was either not statistically significant or there was not a single operator that delivered better performance across both upstream and downstream.

We have included a more detailed analysis below.

Airtel versus MTN

Nigeria: Airtel took the top spot in terms of speed, MTN had better 4G Availability.

As of Q2 2022, MTN Nigeria commanded 38.9% of Nigeria’s mobile users, with its 74.1 million subscribers almost double that of Airtel’s 46.0 million.
Yet when it comes to mobile performance, Airtel Nigeria was ahead of MTN; in Q2 2022, Airtel Nigeria recorded a median download speed of 30.35 Mbps and a median upload speed of 10.28 Mbps, both of which topped those of MTN (26.30 Mbps download and 9.13 Mbps upload).
Those speeds are set to increase as both companies have invested heavily into network infrastructure, with a combined investment of N208.5 billion ($502 million). The investment translates into an increase in 4G Availability as well. In Q2 2022, MTN had 83.8% 4G Availability compared to Airtel’s 77.9%.

Uganda: MTN ahead in download speed, Airtel had better upload.

MTN’s 53.9% market share in Uganda translates to 16.3 million subscribers as of Q2 2022. Meanwhile, Airtel Uganda had a 45.1% market share (13.6 million).
In Q2 2022, MTN Uganda was ahead of Airtel in terms of median download speeds, while Airtel had at least a 33% better median upload speed.
In its recent annual report, Airtel announced that its 4G network was available to 90% of the population of Uganda, effectively providing coverage to the entire country. To aid its capacity, Airtel Uganda is also rolling out fiber, which helps to boost data throughput. For example, in the capital – Kampala – 79% of sites are connected through fiber. In terms of 4G Availability, MTN and Airtel came closely together at 83.1% and 80.7%, respectively.

Rwanda: MTN took the top spot for median download and 4G Availability

MTN Rwanda increased its customer base by 1.7% year-on-year (YoY) to 6.6 million as of Q2 2022, expanding its lead in customer market share by 2.7 pp to 65.6%, Airtel controlled the remainder of the market.
MTN Rwanda performed better than Airtel when it comes to median download speed: MTN had a 33% better median download speed.
MTN Rwanda also had the best 4G Availability order to further increase smartphone penetration in the market and stimulate demand for data services, in June 2022, MTN Rwanda and Bank of Kigali (BK Group) signed an agreement to introduce device financing. This program will enable customers to spread over the cost of smartphones over an extended period of time.

MTN versus Orange

Botswana: Mascom and Orange performed similarly.

Mascom (MTN) is the largest operator in Botswana, with 1.8 million subscribers in Q2 2022 and a 42.2% market share. Orange is the second largest operator, ending Q2 2022 with 1.7 million subscribers and 41.2% market share.
Comparing the operators’ performance, the difference in terms of both median download and upload speeds as well as 4G Availability was not statistically significant and there is no winner.

Côte d’Ivoire: MTN stole the show in terms of performance.

MTN had 38.9% subscriber market share in Côte d’Ivoire as of Q2 2022, which equates to 15.8 million subscribers, Orange ended Q2 2022 with 14.6 million subscribers (36.0% market share).
MTN had faster median download and upload speeds compared to that of Orange, and the gap might widen even more going forward. In December 2021, MTN Côte d’Ivoire started 5G trials at nine locations in Abidjan. This was followed by the Ivoirian government adopting a roadmap for the launch of 5G technology in February this year, with 5G networks expected to go live by 2023.

Guinea: Orange commands the Guinean market.

Market leader, Orange, which switched on its 4G network in 2019, accounted for 60% of mobile connections in Q2 2022 in Guinea, ahead of MTN (30.8%). According to telecom regulator ARPT, in Q4 2021, Orange held a 69.9% market share of mobile Internet traffic, while MTN held 26.9%.
Orange was far ahead in terms of performance during Q2 2022. Part of the reason being that Orange is currently the sole provider of 4G services in the country, with MTN awarded a 4G operating license in February 2022 but it has not launched the services yet.

Vodacom versus Airtel

Kenya: Safaricom won across all metrics.

Safaricom is the largest operator in Kenya by a mile, with 67.1% market share (equivalent to 42.7 million connections) ahead of Airtel 25.9% (16.4 million).
Safaricom also exhibited better network performance during Q2 2022, with a median download speed of 36.25 Mbps and upload of 13.83 Mbps, compared to Airtel (28.58 Mbps download speed and 8.44 Mbps upload).
Safaricom has signed a multi-year contract with satellite provider Intelsat to modernize its network and expand LTE coverage. Safricom is focusing more on 4G rather than pursuing 5G as the cost of 5G handsets is prohibitive and slowing down its 5G expansion. In a bid to increase smartphone usage on its network, Safaricom partnered with Google to allow its customers to pay for 4G-enabled phones in installments. Customers pay as little as KES 20 ($0.34) per day over a nine-month period. The operator’s ultimate target is to upgrade about four million 2G and 3G phones to 4G. Safaricom had also partnered with Vivo to sell 4G phones.
Meanwhile, Safaricom’s top competitor in Kenya, Airtel Kenya, paid $5 million as part of an agreement with the regulator to acquire and operate spectrum from 2015 through 2025. The operator has a remaining balance of $10 million to settle over the next three years, with a cumulative payout of $20 million.

Tanzania: Vodacom did better on download speeds.

Tanzania’s mobile market is served by seven mobile operators, making it one of the most competitive markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Vodacom ended June 2022 with 15.6 million subscribers, which translated into a 28.8% market share, GSMA Intelligence estimates that Airtel held a 27.4% market share in Q2 2022, equivalent to 14.8 million subscriptions.
Vodacom’s median download speeds were ahead of Airtel’s – 17.08 Mbps versus 12.89 Mbps. Vodacom’s 4G Availability also topped Airtel’s at 87.1%, compared to 77.7%. To further increase its network reach, in May 2022, Vodacom Tanzania signed a deal with the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB), a national fiber optic cable network. This will allow Vodacom to increase rural connectivity after an initial investment of €5.82 million ($6.22 million) in October 2021. Furthermore, in September 2022, Vodacom launched 5G mobile service in Dar es Salaam with a target to expand to approximately 230 locations in other cities. In time, as more users migrate to 5G smartphones and tariffs this will lead to Vodacom improving its speeds further.

Orange versus Vodacom versus Airtel

Democratic Republic of Congo: Orange was the top player in terms of download speeds.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the third largest country by population across the SSA and largest by area. It hosts seven mobile operators, including three of the four groups we analyze — Vodacom, MTN, Orange, and Airtel.

In Q2 2022, Vodacom was the largest operator by number of connections with market share of 35.3% and 16.0 million connections, followed by Airtel (12.8 million) and Orange (12.2 million).
Comparing operators’ mobile performance, Orange led in terms of median download speed (29.18 Mbps), ahead of Airtel (11.15 Mbps) and Vodacom (8.00 Mbps). Operators came head to head with regards to 4G Availability.

MTN versus Vodacom

South Africa: MTN outperformed Vodacom in terms of mobile speeds.

Vodacom ended June 2022 with 45.1 million subscriptions equivalent to a 41% market share. MTN is the second largest player with 35.3 million connections, and had a net addition of almost 837,000 in the quarter. MTN noted in their results that: “The overall growth in the base was particularly encouraging given the significant ramp-up in load shedding, which impacts systems and typically constrains new customer acquisitions.”
The South African market might see a consolidation if the proposed acquisition of Telkom by MTN gets the green light. This will change the market dynamics as MTN will become the number one player by number of connections.
In terms of mobile performance, MTN had better median download and upload speeds, while Vodacom led on 4G Availability. We have commented on the state of the 5G market in South Africa in our recent article.

Mobile networks don’t exist in a vacuum

It is important to note that mobile performance is impacted by a number of factors, including underlying infrastructure such as access to fiber backhaul and reliable power supply, spectrum availability as well as end-user devices to name a few. Case in point is the fact that, despite being the regional leaders when it comes to mobile performance, South African operators faced issues related to infrastructure reliability and availability over the past three months. Operating conditions in South Africa were affected by increased incidents of rolling power outages (load shedding) and there are no signs of respite.

We have seen these outages reflected in Downdetector® data, which is the world’s most popular platform for user-reported service status information. During Q2 2022 users reported 46,810 incidents for Vodacom and 34,882 problems for MTN. There were two top issues reported: no signal and no mobile internet: lack of signal accounted for the majority (46%) of Vodacom’s reported outages, followed by inability to access mobile internet (36%). This has been reversed for MTN — majority of issues were related to mobile internet (43%), followed by no signal (40%). Noteworthy is the fact that there were reports of total blackouts: 7% for Vodacom and 5% for MTN.

Vodacom commented in its results call for the quarter ended on June 30, 2022 that they already spent ZAR 1.7 billion ($99.9 million) on batteries and generators to offset the impact of load shedding with further ZAR 500 million ($29.4 million) allocated to battery purchases. Vodacom also continues to optimize site utilization by using IoT.nxt technology to reduce the amount of energy consumption per site but also piloting wind power and solar projects. While its competitor, MTN, stated in its interim results report that it “rolled out a comprehensive network resilience plan including additional batteries, generators and enhanced security features.”

We will continue to monitor mobile networks performance across Africa, looking at how various factors affect it. If you are interested in benchmarking your performance or if you’d like to learn more about internet speeds and performance in other markets around the world visit the Speedtest Global Index™.

About the Author

Sylwia Kechiche

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Sylwia Kechiche | September 6, 2022

South Africa Fixed Broadband Speeds Up as Fiber Takes Off

We recently examined the state of the 5G performance in South Africa, and we now turn our attention to the fixed broadband side. In July 2022, our Speedtest Global Index® ranked South Africa in 95th place, with a median download speed of 35.90 Mbps and a median upload speed of 29.56 Mbps. South Africa has come a long way in the past four years in terms of fixed network performance. In July 2019, for instance, South Africa ranked 112th with fixed median download and upload speeds of 9.95 Mbps and 5.56 Mbps, respectively.

Key messages:

Speedtest Intelligence® data shows that fixed broadband speeds in South Africa have doubled over the past three years – from 15.11 Mbps median download speed in Q1-Q2 2020 to 31.34 Mbps in Q1-Q2 2022, benefiting from increased competition and growth in Fiber to the Home subscriptions.
South Africa still has a long way to go to catch up with other BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Telecom regulator, ICASA, could consider setting a minimum broadband speed to stimulate market adoption outside of urban areas, which are currently underserved.
With only 10% of households connected to broadband, there is substantial room for growth, and operators are looking to extend fiber beyond affluent areas. Furthermore, there is a growing number of mergers and acquisitions in the market. South Africa is home to a complex fiber market with alternative ISPs competing for market share using open fiber networks deployed by Telkom’s wholesale division, Openserve, and alternative FNOs such as Vumatel.
Cool Ideas took the lead in 1H 2022 with a 48.32 Mbps median upload speed and 47.89 Mbps download speed, but its market lead could be soon challenged as many operators are already offering speeds in excess of 30 Mbps.
Gauteng, home to the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, had the best median fixed broadband download speeds of 38.47 Mbps and 27.92 Mbps upload speeds. South African capital city, Johannesburg, was the fastest of the five cities we analyzed.

South African median fixed speeds doubled in the past three years, thanks to fiber growth

Speedtest Intelligence® data shows that fixed broadband speeds in South Africa have more than doubled over the past three years — moving from 15.11 Mbps median download speed in Q1-Q2 2020 to 31.34 Mbps in Q1-Q2 2022; for upload speed, the increase has been more pronounced, improving from a median upload speed of 8.85 Mbps in Q1-Q2 2020 to 24.50 Mbps in Q1-Q2 2022. These improvements are due to increased market competition and a growing number of fiber connections. According to South African regulator Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), fixed line broadband subscriptions increased by 20.4% in 2021, while Fiber to the Home/Building (FTTH/B) subscriptions grew by 34.4%. In fact, FTTH/B subscriptions have increased 44 times over the past seven years: from 31,843 in September 2015 to 1.4 million in September 2021, steadily replacing DSL lines.

However, fixed broadband adoption is still relatively low. There are 17.4 million households in South Africa, and if we translate the overall number of broadband subscriptions into household adoption, this equates to just 10% of South African households having fixed broadband in September 2021. On one hand, this marks an improvement over 2020, when less than one-tenth (8.3%) of households had access to fixed internet at home, according to the General Household Survey. But on the other hand, there was — and is — a significant urban/rural divide. 14% of households in metropolitan areas had access to the Internet at home compared to only 0.8% of rural households according to the same survey.

To help narrow the digital divide, the South African government’s South Africa Connect (SA Connect) initiative was put in place in 2013. Phase One of Digital Development focused on prioritized provision of broadband connection services to government buildings, health facilities, schools, post offices, and police stations in eight districts, but its scope has been reduced due to Covid-19 pandemic. Now, SA Connect entered a second stage, which aims to cover 100% of the population with at least 10 Mbps and 80% of the population with 100 Mbps broadband access by 2030, which forms part of government’s commitment to bridge the digital divide, especially in rural communities, while also advancing the digital economy.

There is still room to grow for South Africa to catch up with other BRICS markets

Using Speedtest Intelligence data, we compared fixed download speeds across the BRICS countries, which include five major emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa during Q1-Q2 2022. China topped the rankings across the BRICS countries, posting a median download speed of nearly 160 Mbps. South Africa, meanwhile, finished last, indicating that South Africa still has room to grow in terms of fixed broadband performance and adoption.

India has already taken steps to improve fixed broadband performance by setting minimum broadband speeds. We have commented how TRAI, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, published several recommendations designed to increase fixed broadband network rollouts and adoption. The recommendations also aim to help achieve India’s targets of universal broadband provision of 50 Mbps, as well as breaking into the top-50 of the ITU’s ICT Development Index by 2022.

South Africa could also look to Chile for inspiration on how to improve its fixed broadband performance. Currently, Chile tops the ranking in terms of global fixed broadband performance, with a fixed median download speed of 213.73 Mbps. While it took time, Chile’s healthy fixed broadband performance is due to a mix of a supportive regulatory environment and robust market competition. According to Chilean regulator Subtel, 83% of fixed broadband connections comprise speeds of 100 Mbps thanks to a growing penetration of fiber to the home (FFTH).

The rise of fiber network operators

There are multiple drivers behind the growth of fiber in South Africa, ranging from Telkom retiring its legacy infrastructure, consumer demand for faster speeds, and the growing consumption of bandwidth-hungry content, from video streaming services to cloud-based enterprise applications. As such, the fixed incumbent, Telkom, is no longer the default wholesale infrastructure provider, which was the case with DSL. The increasing competition in South Africa gave birth to a very competitive and vibrant fiber wholesale market. In fact, South Africa is experiencing a fiber network operators (FNOs) boom, with over 30 FNOs deploying their own infrastructure and sharing it with other operators on an open-access basis.

It’s important to note the difference between FNOs and ISPs: an FNO manages and owns fiber optic connectivity infrastructure; an ISP handles everything customer related, such as getting customers online, support, billing, and more. ISPs often have relationships with multiple FNOs and negotiate deals with them. FNOs like Vumatel, Fibrehoods, Link Africa, Dark Fiber Africa, Openserve, Frogfoot, and Metro Fiber continue to increase their footprint. The competition between FNOs is heating up, both in terms of geographical footprint and on pricing. For instance, MetroFibre recently introduced pay-as-you-go internet options to target underserved areas, while others are doubling speeds offered at the same price.

Vumatel is the market leader in terms of homes passed — the number of premises to which an operator has the capability to connect — and active subscribers, with a self-reported 39% market share across both measures. Vumatel’s fiber network passes 1.5 million homes and has over 450,000 customers connected to its fiber network, with over 30,000 kilometers of fiber network. Vumatel acquired companies such as SADV and Fibrehoods to expand its reach. Vumatel, so far, has mostly focused on big metropolitan areas, but it is now expanding to high-density lower-income areas by offering prepaid packages. In 2017, Vumatel announced a pilot project where residents of Alexandria township could get access to 100 Mbps speeds for less than ZAR 100 (USD 5.88) per month, but the project hasn’t yet come to fruition.

With fiber leveling the competitive field, Telkom created a wholesale fixed-line division, Openserve, in 2015. Openserve’s legal separation will be completed on September 1, 2022 when it will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Telkom Group. There are over 200 ISPs (Internet Service Providers) using its open access network. Openserve reported that by June 30, 2022, its fiber network passed over 890,000 homes — a 45.3% increase from 612,451 a year earlier. At the same time, the number of households connected to its fiber network increased by 35.2% to 414,847, representing an FTTH connectivity rate of 46.6%. Openserve fiber network has the largest reach, with more than 170,000 kilometers of fiber deployed. The operator invested capex to the tune of R 3,472 million (USD 204 million) to modernize and expand the network in 2021 to replace legacy copper networks with fiber. To monetize its investment, Openserve informed ISPs that it plans to stop offering ADSL services from October 2021 in areas within its fiber footprint, with the ultimate goal of shutting down copper based services by 2024.

Frogfoot acquired LinkAfrica’s Western Cape FTTH assets in September 2021 to help its presence in the Western Cape, where Frogfoot increased the number of homes passed to 312,000. Currently, the FNO’s fiber network has passed 336,000 homes, connecting 128,600 homes and 12,500 businesses. In June 2022, Frogfoot announced its Century Promotion, which enables participating ISPs to offer discounted rates on four different line speeds. As a result, end-users can obtain top-tier 1 Gbps connections for less than ZAR 1,000 (USD 58.76). Frogfoot’s ultimate goal is for consumers to subscribe to a 50 Mbps package at well below ZAR 500 (ZAR 29.38) per month.

Vodacom is also looking to increase its market presence in the fixed broadband space. In November 2021, it acquired a 30% stake in a newly combined InfaCo, which combines assets of Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH) and Vodacom’s fiber assets with an option to increase the stake to 40%. The deal, which is currently undergoing regulatory approval processes, gives Vodacom access to the fiber networks of Vumatel and Dark Fiber Africa (DFA), which are both owned by CIVH. Vumatel’s fiber network will be merged with Vodacom’s FTTH and fiber-to-the-business assets.

Cool Ideas took the lead as fiber land grab heats up

Using Speedtest Intelligence®, we compared fixed broadband performance in South Africa during Q1-Q2 2022 across the country’s top providers, those that account for 3% or more of total test samples, which leaves smaller ISPs off our rankings. Our data shows that Cool Ideas led the South African fixed broadband market in the first half of 2022. Cool Ideas reached almost 50 Mbps symmetrical speeds, with 48.32 Mbps median upload speed and 47.89 Mbps download speed. Afrihost, Webafrica, Vox Telecom, Axxess, and rain achieved median download speeds in excess of 30 Mbps. Operator performance in the region can be heavily impacted by the technology offered, with pure FTTH provider Cool Ideas topping our rankings. Fixed download speeds, however, are just one part of the story. Another is coverage. Operators such as Afrihost, MWEB, Vox Telecom, and Axxess use MTN and Vodacom’s mobile networks to offer Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) to expand their coverage in areas where there is no fiber or ADSL coverage.

Cool Ideas, which only offers fiber to homes and businesses, was acquired by Afrihost, but it continues to operate as a standalone brand. The ISP is using Vumatel’s network, which has announced that it will increase speeds for its customers. Cool Ideas customers have recently been notified that their 20/10 Mbps package will be upgraded to 50/50 Mbps for free, while the 100/100 Mbps package will double to 200/200 Mbps.

Afrihost, which finished second in our rankings, offers a range of technologies including FTTH, fixed wireless, ADSL, VDSL, and mobile data. Afrihost and Cool Ideas merged in August 2021 after South Africa’s Competition Commission approved Afrihost buying a majority stake in Cool Ideas. Cool Ideas continues to operate its brand and business separately from Afrihost, with the same employees and management team it had before the merger. Afrihost also owns a majority stake in another South African ISP, Axxess.

Rain, formerly known as iBurst and Wireless Business Solutions (WBS), offers 4G and 5G mobile data to its customers. In November 2019, it became the first company in Africa to launch a 5G Standalone network. Its 5G network currently covers 6 million households in South Africa, including those in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Cape Town, and Potchefstroom in the North West province. Rain plans to expand to new areas and towns along the Garden Route and in Gauteng and Mpumalanga.

MWEB’s technology mix includes DSL, fiber, and LTE. It is a consumer arm of Dimension Data.

HeroTel operates in more than 400 towns and 107 municipalities, with over 150,000 homes passed. It has almost 130,000 broadband subscriptions, 45% of which use fiber, with the remainder using FWA services. CIVH, owner of Vumatel, acquired a 45% stake in Herotel in February 2022, and the company wants to increase its stake in Herotel to 100%. The goal is to expand the footprint of fiber to lower income communities in smaller towns and cities, where Herotel already has a network.

Vox Telecom offers DSL using Telkom’s network and provides fiber using open access fiber networks. Vox Telecom acquired Frogfoot, an FNO, in July 2015.

Gauteng province speeds ahead the country’s average

Across the nine South African provinces, Gauteng is the smallest by land mass, but it’s also the most populous and wealthiest province, home to the country’s largest city, Johannesburg. Given the population and economics of the province, It’s perhaps no surprise that Gauteng had the best median fixed broadband download and upload speeds at 38.47 Mbps and 27.92 Mbps, respectively. Gauteng’s leading speeds are due to several operators posting median download speeds faster than 40 Mbps, such as Afrihost, Axxess, Cool Ideas, Vox Telecom, and Webafrica.

Northern Cape, on the other hand, the largest but most sparsely populated province in South Africa, was home to a median download speed three times lower than the country’s average of 31.34 Mbps.

Residents of Johannesburg had the fastest broadband

Johannesburg performed well across the five cities we looked at in terms of median download and upload speeds. Download speeds in Johannesburg ranged from 25.53 Mbps to 51.49 Mbps, while in Port Elizabeth, speeds were much lower, ranging from 6.36 Mbps to 30.11 Mbps. Typically fiber networks first reach rich and affluent communities that present a fertile ground for their services. For example, a northern suburb of Johannesburg–Parkhurst–was Vumatel’s first suburb.

More is needed to improve fixed networks performance and adoption

Increasing download speeds require more investment in broadband infrastructure from ISPs and FNOs, but most importantly there is a need for reliable underlying infrastructure. Several undersea cables landed in South Africa, including WACS, EASSy, Seacom, SAT3/SAFE, and SACS, with the Equanio and 2Africa cables coming online soon, which helps increase network capacity. However, operators are also facing issues related to infrastructure reliability and availability such as loadshedding (rolling power outages). Affordability is another matter that needs to be addressed.

We will continue to monitor network performance in South Africa to see what effect the fiber race will have on fixed broadband speeds. If you’d like to learn more about internet speeds and performance in other markets around the world, visit the Speedtest Global Index™.

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Sylwia Kechiche

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Mark Giles | August 21, 2022

Qatar – Stronger Competition Driving 5G Performance Gains Ahead of World Cup

Key messages

Vodafone’s resurgence is putting pressure on market leader Ooredoo to maintain its performance lead. Vodafone’s Turnaround Strategy has created a more level competitive playing field in Qatar, helping it increase its market share and drive strong growth in top-line revenues and net profit so far this year. Vodafone’s improving performance in median 5G network speeds is driving Ooredoo to react in order to maintain its lead.
Strong 5G network investment in Qatar, as both operators seek to gain the upper hand, with all eyes on the up-coming FIFA World Cup^™. This major event gives both operators a chance to demonstrate the capabilities and resilience of their 5G networks to a global audience. They have already driven median 5G download speeds in the market to over 400 Mbps so far in 2022, and with mmWave spectrum due to be allocated in 2023, consumers should expect faster performance to come.
Perfect storm has helped propel Qatar to second place globally in mobile download speeds. A desire to rapidly transition their customer bases to 5G has boosted 5G Availability in the market, and has helped Qatar climb to second place in Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index^™ as of July 2022.
Beyond faster speeds, consumers are paying less and have access to unlimited 5G tariffs. While headline median 5G speeds impress, strong competition is also driving improved outcomes for consumers, as ARPU falls quarter-on-quarter. Both operators have also introduced unlimited 5G tariffs, including voice, SMS and data, albeit with fair usage caps.

Vodafone’s resurgence has forced Ooredoo to respond and helped drive network speeds to new highs

Vodafone Qatar’s resurgence as a stronger competitor to market leader Ooredoo Qatar has taken place at a key juncture for the Qatari market — the arrival of 5G. Qatar’s Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) amended the mobile licenses held by Vodafone Qatar and Ooredoo Qatar in early 2019. The new licenses included harmonized terms and conditions for both companies, authorizing each to utilize 100 MHz of C-band spectrum and committed them to roll out commercial 5G networks before the end of 2020 in all densely populated areas. It also required they provide coverage of all primary roads and highways as well as all venues associated with the up-coming FIFA World Cup. This was updated in May 2022 to plan the allocation to both operators of additional spectrum in the C-band as well as high frequency (26 GHz) spectrum by 2023, while their license obligations require their 5G networks to cover 99% of Qatar with minimum download speeds of 100 Mbps by 2024.

Both network operators have invested heavily in their 5G networks, with Ooredoo attaining 99.5% population coverage in Q1 2022, and Vodafone committed to near universal coverage by the end of 2022. This drive to increase coverage and rapidly migrate users to 5G means that Qatar is among the top markets globally in terms of 5G Availability, (the percentage of users with 5G-capable devices who spend a majority of their time connected to 5G networks), which stood at 46.8% as of Q2 2022 according to Speedtest Intelligence^®. Ooredoo maintained an advantage over Vodafone in median 5G download speeds in Q2 2022, recording 450.08 Mbps compared to Vodafone’s 426.04 Mbps, while Vodafone maintains an advantage in upload speeds of 28.61 Mbps to Ooredoo’s 26.76 Mbps.

Ookla^® Speedtest Intelligence data shows that Vodafone’s renewed position within the market is helping spur network investment from both operators. In early 2021, Ooredoo had the upper hand in terms of 5G download performance, while in Q4 2021 Vodafone’s performance jumped considerably, prompting Ooredoo to strengthen its position in Q1 2022. Monthly Speedtest^® data shows that the performance gap between the two operators is beginning to narrow once more. At a national level, this has helped Qatar maintain a top-five position in Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index (a global ranking of median download speeds based on all mobile technologies), and as of July 2022 it ranked second globally.

Vodafone targeting market share gains, helping drive ARPU in the market lower

Qatar has been a challenging market for Vodafone Group. Vodafone Qatar launched in 2009 as the second mobile network operator in the country. While it was able to grow market share, it consistently made losses — in the nine months to December 2017, the company made a loss of QAR 182.16 million (~$50 million), which led to Vodafone Group selling its share in the operator in 2018. The Qatar Foundation took control of the company, having increased its shareholding to 50%, maintaining the Vodafone brand but also implementing a Turnaround Strategy, designed to reverse the company’s fortunes, with a focus on cost containment and revenue growth.

Vodafone Qatar’s operational and financial performance has gone from strength to strength over the five years since then. Costs have fallen from close to 75% of revenues in 2017, to under 60% during 1H 2022, spurred by a rigid focus on cost containment. During the first half of 2022, Vodafone Qatar grew top line revenues by 23.5% (year-on-year, with service revenues increasing by 14%), while net profit rose by 61.3%.

The company is reaping the benefits of an aggressive move to capture new customers — in Q1 2022 its mobile connections base topped 2 million for the first time, representing 18.6% growth year-on-year, well above Ooredoo’s 6.8% growth. Vodafone was the first to introduce “unlimited” tariffs to the market in 2019 across voice, SMS, and data (subject to a fair usage policy), while it has also allowed users across all its tariffs to access 5G. Vodafone’s 5G Availability, the proportion of its users with 5G capable devices which spend a majority of time connected to 5G networks, hit 53.0% during Q2 2022, ahead of Ooredoo’s 42.0%. Vodafone’s drive to acquire new customers has come at the expense of average revenue per user (ARPU), as it is clear it is undercutting Ooredoo in the market. Vodafone’s ARPU fell by 10.3% in the year to Q1 2022, while Ooredoo’s only declined by 3.9%, despite being almost 40% higher.

Focus currently on FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, but more to come

A large part of 5G network investment in the country is targeted at the upcoming FIFA World Cup, scheduled to take place in November and December 2022. The award of the world’s premier global football tournament was a significant coup for Qatar, and is predicted to attract around 1.5 million visitors, a significant increase on the local population of 2.93 million. In addition to covering all fan zones related to the event, both operators have been investing heavily in increasing the capacity of their networks and in building enhanced network assurance capabilities, to make sure their networks can cope with the strain of the additional connections and traffic from the event.

Ooredoo announced in March that it had been selected by the FIFA World Cup organizers as the Official Global Connectivity Services Provider. This will involve providing connectivity services to all media rights licensees in Qatar, and it is building a dedicated network to support broadcast video production and distribution. In order to further boost its network capacity for users at the event, Ooredoo signed a partnership agreement with Ericsson in November 2021, where the vendor will provide network optimization and event management services, covering 5G services in fan zones, stadiums, airports, and major tourist attractions. While not an official partner, Vodafone Qatar’s role in delivering a successful event should not be overlooked. It has tapped the experience of the wider Vodafone Group in delivering connectivity at major events, has been aggressively densifying its 5G network (with over 50% more radio access network sites deployed since 2017), and has also been expanding the reach of its GigaNet fiber network.

The failure to allocate mmWave spectrum in time for the World Cup has disappointed, however this will now take place in 2023, and consumers should expect further 5G performance gains once both operators begin deployment. We will continue to look at performance on both operator’s networks as we draw closer to the World Cup, and at how they handle the deluge of visitors and traffic that it will bring. To stay abreast of Ookla’s latest content, you can subscribe to our updates here.

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Mark Giles

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