Mobile Networks Update: Spain (January 2018)

It's been six months since Opensignal published its State of Mobile Networks for Spain, but a lot has happened in the Iberian mobile market since July. In our first Mobile Networks Update for Spain we have tracked all of the changes in our 3G and 4G metrics since our last visit.

  • In our first Spain report we recorded draws in all three of our speed categories, but in this test period Vodafone has jumped out ahead in two of those metrics. Our results show Vodafone led in 4G speed, with an average LTE download of 35.3 Mbps, and overall speed, averaging 26.2 Mbps. In 3G speed, we found Vodafone and Yoigo statistically tied for first place, both averaging downloads just over 6 Mbps.

  • All four operators saw big boosts to 4G availability in the last six months. In our July analysis, no operator in Spain was able to offer an LTE connection more than 80% of the time. But six months later, all four operators surpassed that 80% threshold. That's a remarkable improvement for all four, but particularly for Yoigo, which saw its availability score increase by nearly 15 percentage points. Vodafone, however, emerged as the winner in the category, providing our users with an LTE signal 86.5% of the time.

  • Spain definitely has bragging rights when it comes to the overall mobile data experience. Because of the big boost in LTE availability we saw across the board, consumers had access to faster 4G connections more often. As a result, all four operators were able to deliver every day overall speeds of at least 20 Mbps. No one is lacking for a mobile broadband connection.

Opensignal Awards Table

Download Speed: 4G Download Speed: 3G Download Speed: Overall Latency: 4G Latency: 3G Availability: 4G

Movistar

 medal

Orange

Vodafone

 medal medal medal medal medal medal

Yoigo

 medal

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Performance by Metric

Download Speed: 4G Download Speed: 3G Download Speed: Overall Latency: 4G Latency: 3G Availability: 4G

Download Speed: 4G

This metric shows the average download speed for each operator on LTE connections as measured by Opensignal users.

Download Speed: 3G

This metric shows the average download speed for each operator on 3G connections as measured by Opensignal users.

Download Speed: Overall

This metric shows the average download speed experienced by Opensignal users across all of an operator's 3G and 4G networks. Overall speed doesn't just factor in 3G and LTE speeds, but also the availability of each network technology. Operators with lower LTE availability tend to have lower overall speeds because their customers spend more time connected to slower 3G networks.

Latency: 4G

This metric shows the average latency for each operator on LTE connections as measured by Opensignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network.

Latency: 3G

This metric shows the average latency for each operator on 3G connections as measured by Opensignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network.

Availability: 4G

This metric shows the proportion of time Opensignal users have an LTE connection available to them on each operator’s network. It's a measure of how often users can access a 4G network rather than a measure of geographic or population coverage.

Our Methodology

Opensignal measures the real-world experience of consumers on mobile networks as they go about their daily lives. We collect 3 billion individual measurements every day from tens of millions of smartphones worldwide.

Our measurements are collected at all hours of the day, every day of the year, under conditions of normal usage, including inside buildings and outdoors, in cities and the countryside, and everywhere in between. By analyzing on-device measurements recorded in the places where subscribers actually live, work and travel, we report on mobile network service the way users truly experience it.

For this particular report, 865,227,261 datapoints were collected from 87,939 users during the period: 2017-09-01 - 2017-11-30.

We continually adapt our methodology to best represent the changing experience of consumers on mobile networks and, therefore, comparisons of the results to past reports should be considered indicative only. For more information on how we collect and analyze our data, see our methodology page.

For every metric we've calculated statistical confidence intervals and plotted them on all of the graphs. When confidence intervals overlap for a certain metric, our measured results are too close to declare a winner in a particular category. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple operator winners.

Opensignal Limited retains ownership of this report including all intellectual property rights, data, content, graphs & analysis. Reports produced by Opensignal Limited may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed, published for any commercial purpose (including use in advertisements or other promotional content) without prior written consent.