Village Connect
By Rose de la Cruz
Opensignal, the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe, awarded Globe as the new outright winner for Video Experience, replacing the previous winner, Smart.
This means that Philippine Globe users have the best experience on average when streaming mobile video over cellular connections (measured across all generations of mobile technology). Globe had a score of 58.2 points on a 100-point scale, ahead of second-placed DITO’s 56.2 points, while former winner Smart placed third with 52.9 points.
Globe is the only Filipino operator to place in the Good (58-68) category, while Smart and DITO placed one category lower — Fair (48-58), which means that Globe users are, on average, are able to stream video at 720p or better with satisfactory loading times and little stalling.
Overall video experience of 5G users (Video Experience – 5G Users), Globe 5G users had the best experience given their score of 63.9 points, giving Globe a lead of 4.4 points over Smart.
Video Experience scores account for adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), a technology that allows Opensignal to accurately represent users’ real video experience including video streams up to 4K quality.
Opensignal’s Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator’s networks. The metric is based on an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach, built upon detailed studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived video experience as reported by real people.
The video experience was calculated directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using this ITU approach to quantify the overall video experience for each operator on a scale from 0 to 100. The videos tested include a mixture of resolutions — including Full HD (FHD) and 4K / Ultra HD (UHD) — and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.
Aside from Video Experience, metrics related to it were measured such as 5G Video Experience of users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator’s networks, factoring in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G video experience along with the availability of each technology; the 4G Experience and 3G experience.
Opensignal released its April 2023 Mobile Network Experience report for the Philippines, and one of its key findings is that Globe has taken over Smart in being the winner for Video, Games, and Voice experience for both 5G-only and overall categories. This marks a big change, as Globe dominates over Smart in receiving awards based on Opensignal’s findings–and shows that Globe has been improving further since 2022.
While Globe has led the way in offering the best experience in video, games, and voice, Smart remains to be in the lead when it comes to Download Experience in both 5G-only and overall categories. In this category, Smart has a Download Experience Speed score of 25.3Mbps–which is 2.6Mbps faster than DITO and 9.1Mbps better than Globe. The same can be said for 5G Download Experience, as Smart attained a score of 133Mbps–which is 22.5Mbps faster than Globe’s 110.8Mbps.
Third telco DITO takes the lead in Consistency, where it narrowly beats Globe in both Core Consistency and Excellent Consistency. Aside from that, DITO retains its crown when it comes to availability for the third time in a row, offering a 98.7% coverage–which is a 1% lead over Smart. DITO has yet fully rolled out its 5G services, so Opensignal has no data yet on DITO’s 5G performance for the time being.
Overall, the main findings of Opensignal’s April 2023 report is that this time around, Globe is the better telco network out of the three in terms of the number of awards it has obtained, while DITO is catching up with the competition.
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