State of Mobile Networks: Portugal (January 2018)

In our first look at the mobile market of Portugal, we examined the 3G and 4G services by the Iberian country's three nationwide operators and discovered that one service provider stood apart. Vodafone Portugal claimed five of our six awards outright and was tied for 1st place in the sixth category. Overall, we found that Portuguese operators have done a good job of building out access to 4G, but in speed, the country still has work to do. Though the typical 4G connection in Portugal is faster than the global average, the country is behind its European peers in speed.

For this report, OpenSignal analyzed more than 178 million measurements taken from 18,880 smart devices between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30, 2017. We used that data to compare the 3G and 4G experience offered by Altice's MEO, NOS and Vodafone on the national level as well as in the capital city Lisbon. Let's dive into the data starting with the metric where we saw the greatest disparity in results: 4G speed.

Vodafone takes a commanding lead in speed

The race for fastest 4G speeds wasn't even close. We measured average LTE download speeds on Vodafone at 33.8 Mbps, which is more than double the average speeds tested on NOS (13.1 Mbps) and MEO (14.3 Mbps). The contrast was even more stark when compared to global averages. Vodafone's measured LTE speed was a full 17 Mbps faster than the global average download of 16.6 Mbps from our most recent State of LTE report. Meanwhile both NOS's and MEO's speed scores were at least 2 Mbps slower than that same global average. Vodafone has been investing heavily in its 4G systems for some time, announcing as far back as 2015 LTE-Advanced upgrades that tripled its 4G capacity and speeds. MEO recently announced plans for LTE-Advanced upgrades of its own, but as of this reporting period, the incumbent operators was still quite a distance from closing the speed gap with Vodafone.

In 3G speed, Vodafone also won top honors, though the contest was much closer. Vodafone averaged HSPA download speeds of 6.8 Mbps in our tests, while MEO took second place with an average download of 5.3 Mbps. Given Vodafone won both our 3G and 4G speed awards it easily locked down OpenSignal's overall speed award. It had an average download of 18.6 Mbps across its mobile data networks, which was nearly 10 Mbps faster than its competitors' averages in our tests.

Vodafone didn't run away with all of OpenSignal's awards though. It faced a stiff challenge from NOS in one of our key metrics, 4G availability. Availability measures the proportion of time users can access a network signal. In the case of NOS and Vodafone, our users were able to find 4G connections on their networks 80% of the time, resulting in a statistical draw for first place. Both operators' scores were admirable, showing both have reached maturity in their LTE deployments. MEO, however, has some catching up to do. Our MEO testers were only able to connect to LTE 63.5% of the time.

Our final set of metrics cover latency, which is effectively the responsiveness of a network. Low latency connections produce less lag time in real-time communications apps like VoIP and video chat and generate more fluid internet surfing sessions. Vodafone won our 4G latency award with an LTE ping time of 32.6 milliseconds and our 3G latency award with an HSPA response of 65.1ms.

Looking to Lisbon and to Europe

For our regional analysis, OpenSignal zeroed in on Portugal's capital and largest city Lisbon, looking at how all three operators stacked up in our 4G metrics. Our Lisbon awards generally lined up with our national awards. Vodafone won both our 4G speed and latency categories, while we recorded a statistical draw between NOS and Vodafone in 4G availability. However, we found most operators improved on their national scores in the capital. Vodafone's 4G speed jumped to 39 Mbps in our Lisbon measurements, while MEO and NOS also enjoyed upticks in speed in the city. MEO was also able to provide a 4G signal to our users much more often in the capital than it was able to nationally. All three operators also posted better response times in our Lisbon 4G latency tests.

When we zoom out from Lisbon to the Europe at large, we find both good news and bad news for Portugal's operator community. The good news is Portugal stacked up well against its European peers in 4G availability. The typical Portuguese smartphone user was able to connect to a 4G network 71.4% of the time, according to OpenSignal's State of LTE report. That score was comparable to the level of 4G connectivity we see in the U.K. and much better than those of other Western European countries like France, Germany, Ireland and Italy. But Portugal's 4G availability fell well short of Iberian neighbor Spain's score of 80.2%.

In 4G speed, Portugal found itself behind its European peers. Though Vodafone had exemplary 4G speeds in our results, MEO and NOS's much slower tested speeds dragged down Portugal's nationwide 4G average. Portugal's typical 4G download of 19.1 Mbps was faster than the global average of 16.6 Mbps, but it lagged behind the faster LTE speeds we generally see throughout Europe. In comparison, France, Ireland and the U.K. all averaged 4G speeds faster than 20 Mbps in our LTE report, while Italy and Spain averaged speeds faster than 25 Mbps.

As MEO's new LTE-Advanced upgrades take hold we may well see its speeds increase significantly, which push Portugal into the upper tiers of speed. Until then, Portuguese 4G consumers must be content with wide-reaching 4G services, but (with one operator exception) not particularly fast connections.