Poland is one of the few countries left in Europe that still has four mobile operators, but one difference here compared to many markets is that no single operator stands out in terms of network performance.
A new report on the Polish mobile market by OpenSignal -- the company’s first report on this market -- showed that the four operators seem to be fairly evenly matched based on network tests carried out between May 1 and Jul. 31, 2016.
“Instead of one or two operators dominating our mobile data performance and availability metrics, the winners were fairly evenly distributed with each individual operator excelling in one or two categories,” the report said.
That means a great deal of choice for consumers, who are able to base their decisions on pricing and value-added content while remaining safe in the knowledge that they will get a decent 4G performance from each operator.
However, different operators do stand out depending on criteria such as network speed, signal availability and latency on the 3G and 4G networks. These are all factors of varying importance to consumers depending on their needs.
In terms of 4G speeds, while speeds were generally good across all four operators in OpenSignal’s tests, the networks of Orange Poland and T-Mobile Poland stood out.
“Our users measured average LTE download speeds of 26.1 Mbps on Orange's network and 26.7 Mbps on T-Mobile's network,” the network testing company said.
OpenSignal added that the two operators are reaping the benefits of their strategy to make use of new 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum licences for their 4G networks.
Polkomtel-owned Plus managed a respectable 19.2 Mbps average in OpenSignal’s analysis, but the tests found Play Mobile to be the slowest of the four with a measured download speed of 15.3 Mbps. However, Play is expected to improve its performance in future because of the recent deployment of new LTE Advanced techniques to improve speed.
In terms of 4G availability, OpenSignal said its 4G testers on Play were able to connect to its LTE network 63.8 per cent of the time and Plus's 4G customers were able to see an LTE signal 64.9 per cent of the time, resulting in a statistical draw. Both operators beat Orange and T-Mobile, which had 4G availability metrics of 56.1 per cent and 54.5 per cent respectively.
For more:
- see the OpenSignal report
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