As our digital lives grow more connected and complex, expectations for network performance are rising. It’s no longer just about speed — it’s about whether your internet experience works the way you need it to: consistently, smoothly, and without frustration. As those expectations evolve, so must the way we measure and recognize great networks. New expectations call for new testing — and that means new awards.
That’s why we’ve updated the Speedtest Awards™ methodology to better reflect what really matters to consumers. The changes include smarter performance criteria and introduce two new awards: Best Mobile Network and Best Fixed Network. These awards — along with updates to our Fastest Network recognition — now factor in not just raw speed, but also real-world experience metrics like responsiveness and quality of experience.
This article explores Ookla’s updated Speedtest Awards™ methodology, designed to offer a more comprehensive view of network performance. We’ll explain how these new awards combine crucial QoE and QoS insights, and why speed still plays a key role in the bigger performance picture, especially when paired with real-world experience metrics.
Why Speed Still Matters
Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) metrics offer valuable depth into network performance — and among them, speed stands out as the most tangible and universally understood. Speed is a key QoS measure that reflects the capacity of a network and continues to play a central role in enabling new digital use cases. That role is cyclical: faster speeds unlock new applications, which in turn drive demand for even greater speeds — continually pushing the boundaries of what networks can deliver.
Speed is foundational because it:
- Affects how quickly users can load and upload content and use apps: From instant webpage loading to rapid file downloads, speed is critical.
- Acts as a high-level indicator of overall network health and capacity: A fast network generally indicates robust infrastructure and sufficient capacity to handle demand.
- Enables emerging and demanding use cases: High-bandwidth applications like 4K streaming, virtual reality (VR), and cloud gaming are only possible with consistently high speeds.
In short, speed isn’t going anywhere. It continues to be critical for users and is a useful and widely understood metric for operators — especially when paired with QoE metrics.
A More Holistic View: Speedtest Connectivity Score™
While speed remains a major part of the equation, the true measure of a network’s performance lies in how it enables real-world activities. The Speedtest Connectivity Score™ provides a rich, contextual understanding of the actual consumer experience by factoring in not just speed, but also the responsiveness (or latency) of common online tasks like web browsing and video streaming. This holistic approach helps operators understand what truly matters to their users.
The Speedtest Connectivity Score is calculated on a 0-100 scale and comprises three key components:
- Speed Score: It combines download and upload speeds with latency to provide a smarter, more complete measure of a network’s overall responsiveness.
- Web Browsing Score: This measures the responsiveness of web page loading, reflecting how quickly and smoothly users can navigate the internet.
- Video Streaming Score: This assesses how well a network handles video playback, reflecting the ability to stream popular services smoothly and without buffering or interruptions.
The components of the Speedtest Connectivity Score — speed, web browsing responsiveness, and video streaming quality — work together to provide a more complete view of real-world network performance. By blending speed with Quality of Experience (QoE) insights, the Speedtest Connectivity Score reflects what matters most to users: the ability to seamlessly browse, stream, and stay connected in their everyday lives.
The Ookla Difference: Measuring What Matters Most
Ookla stands apart by delivering superior insights on both Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) — thanks to our unmatched scale, methodology, and real-world data.
- Scale and volume of QoS testing: Our consumer-initiated Speedtests are trusted worldwide by millions every day. Consumers actively hit the “Go” button, generating 11+ million daily tests. This huge volume of consumer-initiated tests offers a trusted, real-world snapshot of network performance that’s both broad and representative.
- Testing anywhere users go: Our testing reaches wherever phones go — indoors, rural areas, stadiums, highways, and beyond. This ensures our data captures performance at the times and places consumers actually use their devices, unlike other testing methods.
- Scale and relevance of real-world QoE measurements: We offer QoE insights like web browsing and video streaming across more than 200 countries. And those web browsing and video streaming insights come directly from when consumers are actively engaged on their phones — not from passive background collection, not from synthetic testing, and not from estimates of what the consumer experience should be like based solely on RF conditions. This direct measurement delivers a practical benchmark of how well networks support the activities consumers care about most.
With a combination of unparalleled scale with real-world relevance, Ookla provides operators and users alike with the most precise and actionable view of network performance — both in speed and quality.
Introducing New Speedtest Awards™: Recognizing True Performance
Our commitment to accurately reflecting the consumer network experience is driving the evolution of our Speedtest Awards. The new methodology, which incorporates QoE and QoS insights, is designed to recognize operators who truly excel in delivering superior connectivity.
- Best Fixed Network Award: Highlights operators excelling in both Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE), reflecting overall fixed network performance that matters to users.
- Best Mobile Network Award: Recognizes mobile operators delivering strong, dependable performance by measuring both QoS and QoE to capture real-world user experience.
Tying It All Together: Speed and QoE for a Complete Picture of Performance
Speed and QoE aren’t competing metrics—it’s quite the opposite. They work together to give a complete picture of network performance. Speed shows how fast the network can go, acting as a quick snapshot of its capacity. QoE reflects how the connection actually feels to the user and how well it supports real-world activities. When combined, speed and QoE provide a stronger, more balanced view of performance than either metric alone.
This comprehensive approach to network performance is precisely why Ookla’s Speedtest Awards™ are evolving to incorporate not just raw speed, but also key QoE metrics through the Speedtest Connectivity Score. By acknowledging both the underlying power and the real-world usability of a network, our awards highlight providers who truly excel in delivering superior connectivity.
Speedtest has long given the cleanest and most trusted view of speed performance; we believe our QoE data is similarly a touchpoint for how this type of data should be collected. Providing the best and most relevant view of performance for today’s connectivity needs means pushing beyond traditional testing methods and metrics. That’s what we’re offering. It’s better data, for better insights, to help create better connectivity for all.
Interested in learning how these changes might impact you? Contact us—we’re happy to chat.
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.
