Singaporean Mobile Phone Users Enjoy Good Video Experience

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Date : 19-Mar-2019
Location: Singapore

Key Take-Aways:
  • The State of Mobile Video(September 2018) published by Opensignal, Singapore ranks top 10 in the measurement of overall Video Experience - scoring 66.94 which belongs to the 'Very Good' category.
  • In terms of 4G Video Loading Time, the longest Video Load Time in our measurements was on Starhub's networks, and that wait was only 2.7 seconds. Singtel and M1 were statistically tied at 2.4 seconds.
  • The metric 4G Video Stalling Occurrence measures the proportion of users that experience an interruption in playback after a video begins streaming.
  • 10% 4G Video Stalling Occurrence is a common thing, nonetheless, Singapore performed much better whereby Starhub had the highest rate of stalling at 4.3%.
  • Video download speed and video experience may not fall into the same basket - OpenSignal found that countries with higher download speed averages than Singapore actually often do much worse in Video Experience. The major factors attributing these are latency and consistency of connection speed.
  • Latency has a bearing on Video Loading time, as the faster a video request traverses the network the sooner that content begins buffering and playback starts. And our analysis has shown Singapore's operators are among the best in the world in maintaining nimble, low-latency networks.
  • Video is particularly sensitive to fluctuations in speed. A video that plays without difficulty one moment may find itself suddenly starved for bandwidth in the next if download speeds suddenly drop due to congestion or other factors. In Singapore we found the same speed fluctuations as in other countries, but the difference was Singapore's operators were able to maintain strong connections despite those fluctuations. According to our analysis, average 4G Download Speeds in Singapore never dropped below 41.4 Mbps no matter the hour of day. And a consistent 40 Mbps connection is more than enough to support all but the most demanding HD video streams.
  • Singapore is preparing for the entrance of TPG, a fourth operator that aims to shake up competition in the Singapore mobile scene. While TPG will likely try to challenge Singapore's three incumbents in pricing, it will be interesting to see if TPG can also be competitive from a mobile network experience perspective. The three incumbents have already set a very high bar in Video Experience as well as speed, availability and latency. It will be difficult for a network to match those standards right out of the gate.
  • According to OpenSignal, even the fastest 4G countries need 5G to counter big drops in speeds at busy times.
  • Cities see the greatest speed swings, indicating daytime congestion 5G can relieve.
  • To launch all the most demanding new applications, such as augmented reality or autonomous driving, operators and app developers must be able to break free from today’s limitations where they are forced to create services and apps for the worst-case congestion conditions. The world needs new 5G networks to offer increased capacity, and more consistent speeds to sustain new innovations.


Spokeperson:
Offerings:
  • OpenSignal collects over 3 billion individual measurements every day from tens of millions of smartphones worldwide - with the data, they offer a range of analytics solutions tailored to the needs of different stakeholders and teams, allowing users to quickly and accurately identify relevant information without the need for deep technical knowledge - targeting mobile network operators, telecom regulators and analysts.
Editor's comments:
  • Everything comes with a cost, that includes the pursuit to cut cost.
  • Adoption of 5G will cost money definitely, absent that, look to the aforementioned Singapore's 4G experience as case study for best practices.
  • Countries like Malaysia should wait for Singapore to adopt 5G and learn from their experience in order to cut down on cost related trial and errors.
  • Nonetheless, the ultimate driver of 5G adoption is the consumer demand -  as always - starting from 1G,2G,3G,4G etc
  • Software engineering white knight or dilemma ? Should we build a mobile app which consumes too much data to the needs of 5G or optimized to 3G ?
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