For skiers, having good mobile service is essential, be it in emergency situations or simply when sharing their pictures and videos on the go from the slope. Ahead of the ski season, Opensignal has analyzed the mobile network experience in the 100 biggest ski resorts in Switzerland. We found that Swisscom users had the fastest overall speeds and 5G Download Speed in the ski resorts and they spent significantly less time with no signal than our Salt and Sunrise users. Also, users in resorts in the Graubünden canton enjoyed faster overall and 5G speeds than those in the Valais canton, although 5G Availability scores showed no statistically significant difference between these cantons.
Swisscom users enjoyed the fastest average overall download and upload speeds in the biggest ski resorts. Swisscom had the highest score for the overall Download Speed Experience — 64.7 Mbps, or 48.8-56.7% faster than Salt and Sunrise users’ speeds, which were in a statistical tie. Also, Swisscom commanded a substantial lead for Upload Speed Experience. Its users’ average upload speeds clocked in at 16.5 Mbps — around 37.6% faster than its competitors’ users.
Our users on Swisscom’s network also saw the fastest average 5G download speeds across the biggest ski resorts of 195.6 Mbps or around a third faster than the 5G speed experienced on Salt and Sunrise. However, our users observed no statistically significant differences in 5G Upload Speed between the three Swiss operators. Fast upload speeds are becoming essential for skiers e.g. for sharing photos or videos from the slopes, on social media.
Network availability is essential to users’ mobile network experience, especially in remote areas like ski resorts where signal availability might be scarce. Our Swisscom users spent 1.4% of the time with no signal, which was significantly less than users on Salt and Sunrise, who spent over 50% more (both 2.1% of the time with no signal).
However, there was no statistical difference between Sunrise and Swisscom for 5G Availability – our users on these networks had an active 5G connection 18.8-19.1% of the time. This was over twice as much as Salt’s 5G Availability, which lagged behind with a score of 9.4%.
Opensignal also analyzed the mobile network experience of our users in ski resorts located in two Swiss cantons — Graubünden and Valais, where the majority of the biggest 100 ski resorts are (28 and 26 resorts respectively). Graubünden, located in Eastern Switzerland, is famous for such ski resorts as St. Moritz, Laax or Davos Klosters. Meanwhile, the Valais canton, which neighbors both France and Italy, is home to resorts like Champéry, Verbier or Zermatt.
Looking at network availability, we observed no statistically significant differences between ski resorts in Graubünden and Valais in time spent with no signal and 5G Availability. Both Graubünden and Valais were in a statistical tie for time with no signal, with scores of 1.3-1.6%. This result also tied with Switzerland’s national average score of 1.4%. As for 5G Availability — our 5G users connected to 5G services in ski resorts in these two cantons 17.8-18.7% of the time — again, statistically tied with Switzerland’s national average of 17.1%. In both of these metrics, Graubünden and Valais were on par with Switzerland’s average scores. This indicates that Swiss operators have prioritized the deployment of 5G infrastructure in ski resorts, which is to be expected given their status as popular tourist destinations.
Opensignal data demonstrates users in ski resorts in Graubünden enjoyed slightly faster overall download and upload speeds than those spending their time in Valais — 11.3% and 11.1% faster, respectively.
However, the difference was much more significant for 5G speeds, where users in Graubünden ski resorts recorded 5G Download Speed clocking in at 217.3 Mbps on average — 41.5% faster than those in Valais. Similarly, the 5G Upload Speed score was around 10 Mbps higher in Graubünden ski resorts than in Valais — which translates to a 32.4% faster average 5G Upload Speed. Notably, 5G download speeds in Graubünden ski resorts were higher than Switzerland’s national average (183.6 Mbps) — while ski resorts in Valais were below that average.
Swiss operators have been targeting the country’s ski resorts with their 5G deployments, to provide 5G services in popular tourist destinations. Despite the rural location, our 5G users still enjoyed average 5G download speeds exceeding the 100 Mbps mark — or even nearly 200 Mbps using one operator. However, there are significant differences in the mobile network experience between ski resorts in different parts of the country. While we observed similar 5G Availability and Time with no signal measurements for ski resorts located in Graubünden and Valais cantons, the former saw much faster average overall and 5G speeds than the latter.
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