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Mobile Networks Update: Belgium (August 2018)
Competition is high in the Belgian mobile market, as we saw in the large number of draws in our metrics in our last State of Mobile Networks report. But now it's time to revisit the market, and we've seen one operator pull ahead of the pack in some of our key metrics. We analyzed 141 million measurements from over 10,000 devices in the 90-day test period starting May 1, 2018 to compare the 3G and 4G mobile data experience offered by the country's three national operators, BASE, Orange and Proximus. It's still a close-run race in many of our categories, and competition in the market is growing, with the government recently stating it is seeking a fourth operator in the forthcoming 5G auction.
- BASE has managed to take the lead in our 4G download speed metric, after drawing with Orange in this category six months ago. BASE added more than 5 Mbps to its LTE speed in our measurements to reach an average of just under 45 Mbps — one of the highest 4G download rates we have recorded. Proximus moved into second place in our metric with an average 4G download speed just shy of 39 Mbps, while Orange saw its average speed drop to under 34 Mbps.
- BASE also saw a notable improvement in our overall speed category, but had to settle for sharing the award with Proximus in this report, after a three-way draw in this metric in our last report. BASE saw impressive growth of over 6 Mbps to reach 36 Mbps in our overall speed metric, which factors in the combined speeds of operators' 3G and 4G networks and the level of access to each technology. Proximus was close behind after increasing its overall speed by nearly 5 Mbps to reach 34 Mbps in our measurements, while Orange was once again in third place with 29 Mbps.
- In our 4G availability metric, we recorded a three-way draw as all three of Belgium's operators were over or very close to the 85% mark. Orange and Proximus shared the spoils in this category six months ago, but BASE has closed the gap and there is now very little light between the three. Nevertheless, national scores of over 85% are impressive, and reflect Belgium's place among the top 20 countries we have measured for 4G availability.
- Proximus managed to pull ahead of the pack in our 4G latency metric – one category which is often overlooked but is becoming increasingly important as smartphone user habits change. Proximus' 4G latency speed improved to just under 30ms in our measurements after it drew with Orange in this category six months ago. But BASE also saw a notable improvement in its 4G latency score to close the gap on the leaders.
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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BASE |
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Orange |
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Proximus |
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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:
P
Proximus
O
Orange
B
BASE | Region | Download Speed: 4G | Latency: 4G | Availability: 4G |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brussels | |||
| Flanders | |||
| Wallonia |
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, 141,055,871 datapoints were collected from 10,098 users during the period: 2018-05-01 - 2018-07-29.
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.