Opensignal awards Singtel a stack of 5G performance gongs

Opensignal’s 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2024 measured the 5G experience of its users across the first 180 days of 2024. Based on its findings, top scoring operators were given the title of 5G Global Winners, while runners-up were termed 5G Global Leaders, and it also has a 5G Global Rising Stars badge of honour. 

It splits operators into two groups based on whether they operate on small or large land masses. “This is in recognition of the fact that it is a hugely different — and more difficult — undertaking to roll out 5G across a vast light populated territory than across a small nation or city-state,” explains the report.

The associated release highlights Singapore’s Singtel and M1 as ‘standout winners’. In particular Singtel was given a 5G Global Leader gong in the categories of Availability, Download Speed, Video Experience, and Games Experience.

In terms of 5G availability, T-Mobile 5G users in the US and Puerto Rico ‘continue to spend the greatest proportion of time with an active 5G connection’ in their respective large land mass and small land mass groups, with scores of 67.4% and 71.7%. India’s Jio is now close behind T-Mobile USA with a score of 66.4%, notes the report.

Brazil’s Vivo along with South Korea’s LG U+ and SK telecom top the 5G Download Speed category. Vivo is the sole 5G Global Winner in the large land mass category, with Opensignal’s users on its network clocking up average 5G download speeds of 365.6Mbps.

Meanwhile Malaysia’s U Mobile, Singapore’s Singtel and csl Hong Kong came top for 5G Games Experience. In the large land mass group, U Mobile was named the sole 5G Global Winner with 90.4 points on a 100-point scale, and in the small land mass group, Singtel and csl are both 5G Global Winners with scores of 92.4 and 92.8 points respectively.

Winners and losers in Opensignal’s categories aside, in terms of the general picture of 5G across the globe, the report states that up until now much of the industry’s focus has been on improving download speeds, but that as 5G evolves and 5G SA ramps up, the attention will shift towards enhancing upload speed. It also notes that 5G is helping to reduce congestion, thanks to new spectrum bands and increased spectral efficiency compared to 4G.

“Most commercially available 5G networks are non-standalone access (NSA), which means they rely on a 4G network core. 5G standalone access (SA) networks – anchored on a 5G core – are the foundation for fulfilling 5G's early promises, catering to enterprise needs for network slicing, low latency, and massive IoT capabilities,” states the report. “5G SA also lays the groundwork for 5G Advanced features. The difficulty of transitioning to 5G standalone access (SA) and the time required to roll-out 5G networks means that the industry is only just starting to explore the commercial potential of the use cases it enables.

“While doubts around 5G monetization remain, one clear success story has been 5G fixed wireless access (FWA), which has enabled US operators to rapidly expand their broadband footprints and acquire millions of 5G FWA subscribers since 2021. Operators in other markets are taking note, such as India’s Jio and Saudi Arabia’s Zain.” 

Meanwhile last month Opensignal put out another report which claimed 5G availability in the UK is lower than it was the previous year. UK smartphone users have a 5G network available to them around 10% of the time, according to the report.