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Mobile Networks Update: Portugal (June 2018)
In January Opensignal took our first look at Portugal in our State of Mobile Networks report. Now it's time to revisit our numbers. In our first Mobile Networks Update for the region, we've refreshed our analysis, tracking all of the changes we've seen in our 3G and 4G measurements for the three major operators MEO, NOS and Vodafone over the ensuing six months. Vodafone continued to dominate our metrics, winning six out of seven of our national awards outright and drawing in the seventh. However, its rivals showed signs of catching up, particularly in 3G and 4G download speeds where our measurements show Vodafone's growth had somewhat stalled.
- In our last report six months ago, Vodafone absolutely smashed our 4G download speed metric, with its score being well over double that of both its rivals. However, the UK-owned operator has failed to build on this lead, with our most recent average 4G speed measurement of 33.7 Mbps showing no growth. This has allowed its rivals to close the gap, with MEO in particular seeing its 4G download speed jump by over 7 Mbps to reach 21.8 Mbps in our measurements. Indeed, MEO also grew its 3G download speed by over 2 Mbps to reach 7.4 Mbps, achieving a draw in this category, which was won outright by Vodafone six months ago. However Vodafone maintained its lead in our overall speed category, while it also comfortably won our 4G upload crown.
- In terms of 4G availability, which shows the proportion of time users with a 4G device and subscription can get an LTE connection, Vodafone has pulled ahead of its rivals, winning our award after drawing with NOS in that category six months previous. Vodafone saw an increase of over 5 percentage points to reach an impressive 85.5%, while its closest rival NOS could only manage an incremental increase to 81.5% from 79.6%. However it was third-placed MEO who saw the greatest increase, with our measurements showing its 4G availability jumped by over 10 percentage points to 74%. This close contest was reflected in our regional measurements in Lisbon, where Vodafone was the winner but all three operators registered scores of over 80%, with MEO again posting the greatest increase.
- Former incumbent MEO has been somewhat left behind by the dynamic growth of agile rivals Vodafone and NOS, and the two have recently signed an infrastructure deal to share some 200 mobile towers across the country. But MEO is showing some encouraging signs of improvement, particularly in 4G availability. Our measurements show that in this key metric, all three Portuguese operators have now passed the 70% milestone.
Opensignal Awards Table
 | Download Speed: 4G | Download Speed: 3G | Download Speed: Overall | Upload Speed: 4G | Latency: 4G | Latency: 3G | Availability: 4G |
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MEO |
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NOS | |||||||
Vodafone |
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Performance by Metric
Download Speed: 4G
Download Speed: 3G
Download Speed: Overall
Upload Speed: 4G
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.
Upload Speed: 4G
This metric shows the average upload speed for each operator on LTE connections as measured by Opensignal users.
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.
Regional Performance
This chart shows the regional winners in each category Opensignal measures. Click on the icons to see a more detailed graph showing each operator’s metrics in a particular region.
Legend:
V
Vodafone
N
NOS
M
MEO | Region | Download Speed: 4G | Download Speed: 3G | Download Speed: Overall | Upload Speed: 4G | Latency: 4G | Latency: 3G | Availability: 4G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lisbon |
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, 648,698,305 datapoints were collected from 35,375 users during the period: 2018-03-01 - 2018-05-29.
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.