Opensignal: Smart dominates PHL mobile experience in Q1

PLDT, Inc.’s wireless arm Smart Communications, Inc. dominated Opensignal’s first-quarter ranking of mobile network experience among the country’s three largest mobile operators.

Smart was the market leader in terms of download speed experience and fifth-generation (5G) download speed, with scores of 19.7 megabits per second (Mbps) and 149.9 Mbps, respectively, Opensignal senior analyst Sam Fenwick said in his report for the first quarter.

Smart outperformed DITO Telecommunity Corp. by 4.9 Mpbs (32.8%) in terms of download speed and Globe Telecom, Inc. by 38.8 Mbps (35%) in terms of 5G download speed.

Mr. Fenwick said Smart 5G users also spent the most time on 5G and found a 5G signal in the most locations.

“Smart wins 5G availability with a score of 14.7%, 5.8 percentage points ahead of Globe’s 8.8%. Smart’s lead is smaller in 5G reach as it wins with a score of 4.4 points, while Globe comes second with 3.5 points,” he noted.

At the same time, Smart dominated the games and voice application experience.

“Smart’s margin of victory is impressive for both games experience and 5G games experience — for the former, its score of 54 points is 12.9 points (31.5%) higher than that of second placed DITO. Smart wins 5G games experience with a score of 68.1 points, ahead of Globe’s score of 56.8 points by an impressive 11.3 points,” Mr. Fenwik said.

Meanwhile, Globe won the excellent consistent quality award with a 7.8 percentage points margin over Smart.

“In core consistent quality, Globe beat DITO by 12.8 percentage points,” Mr. Fenwik said.

Opensignal’s measures of consistent quality quantify how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements.

Meanwhile, excellent consistent quality analyzes the percentage of users’ tests that met the minimum recommended thresholds for watching high-definition video, completing group video conference calls, and playing games. Moreover, core consistent quality uses thresholds for less demanding applications.

DITO dominated the upload speed experience category, with its users seeing the fastest average upload speeds in the country of 4.8 Mbps.

“DITO commanded a lead of 0.3 Mbps (7.6%) over second placed Smart’s score of 4.5 Mbps. Globe is in third place with a score of 3 Mbps,” Mr. Fenwik said.

“However, Smart is the sole winner of the 5G upload speed award with a score of 14.6 Mbps — 3.6 Mbps (32.5%) ahead of second-placed Globe.”

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in ����ý through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin