MyConnection SG results show M1 has the fastest 4G network

IDA has revealed that the MyConnection SG mobile app has amassed more than 50 million data points, with positive results, since the pilot began in October 2014. The app seeks to improve information transparency and the quality of the mobile experience for users through voluntary crowdsourcing to gather information such as coverage on mobile cellular networks.

The findings show that mobile users had good 3G service coverage experience island-wide, while coverage experience on 4G* has been improving. On average, the average typical data download speed experienced by 80% of 4G participants was between 5.1 Mbps and 42.4 Mbps, with a peak speed of 87.7 Mbps. These download speeds were about five times faster than on the 3G network, which registered a typical data download speed of between 0.8Mbps and 9.2Mbps, with a peak speed of 31.3Mbps. At these speeds, the report noted that users should have a "good experience"  when accessing content-rich social networking sites , video streaming and online gaming.

Source: IDA. All three operators have faster 4G than 3G networks, as should be expected, with M1's 4G network being the speediest and Starhub's the slowest. Singtel's 3G network is fastest, and M1's is the slowest.

When it came to connections, 4G services registered shorter latency (about four times shorter) when establishing a local connection when compared with 3G, the report found.

Source: IDA. StarHub takes the longest to establish a connection on its 3G network compared to M1 or Singtel. On 4G, StarHub continues to take longer to make a connection but it is marginally slower than Singtel.

MyConnection SG, a mobile app developed in conjunction with Ciqual, has also helped to identify areas with high utilisation as well as potential cellular blind spots. These results will help plan for efficient upgrades for a better user experience.

The app collects information such as data performance - session throughput, latency, data loss - and voice performance - voice call success rates and voice call drops. MyConnection SG will also allow participants to view their connection performance to popular websites and apps** such as Facebook, Youtube, Google, Twitter, Mediacorp and Gmail.

With close to 4,000 participants as of mid-January 2015, IDA said the pilot will be extended for another three months to gather more data, and will now run until 30 June 2015. IDA aims to launch the app officially by end 2015 and intends to publish the MyConnection SG results every six months thereafter .

Interested?

Read the results of the pilot, which ended March 2015. The site includes links to the download the app.
Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about Singtel's insights on the MyConnection SG results.

*Assessment of the quality of experience on 3G and 4G cellular mobile networks was made on the Android OS only as this operating system provides the capability to differentiate between 3G and 4G networks.
**Based on the Nielsen Digital Index 2013 and Alexa September 2014 for the ranking of most-accessed sites/apps in Singapore. This list will change as it is subject to the availability of websites and apps.