MALAYSIA’S LTE NETWORKS FASTER THAN THE US, BUT FAR BEHIND IN COVERAGE, ACCORDING TO REPORT

Malaysia’s LTE networks are on average, faster than the US and even Japan, but its coverage is one of the worst in the world, according to a report by OpenSignal. The company behind the OpenSignal app released the report based data taken from 11 million users of the app, from 29 countries.

The OpenSignal app for Android and iOS is aimed at compiling the world’s largest database of cell phone towers, signal strength, and WiFi access points. The app lets users locate how fast your connection is, how far away are you from a cell tower (for better reception), local WiFi networks around you, and also perform a speed test. This data is then stripped of any personal information and submitted to the database.

This information is then collected by the company, which releases its findings in reports. Its latest one deals with “The State of LTE”, covering a large user base of 11 million people across 29 countries, including Malaysia.

According to OpenSignal, the average download speed of LTE networks provided by Celcom and Maxis (12Mbps) is faster than more established countries such as the US (7Mbps) and even Japan (9Mbps). However, it is far away from Spain (18Mbps), Finland, Denmark and South Korea (all 17Mbps) as the countries with the world’s fastest LTE networks.

That being said, Malaysia’s – or more like Maxis and Celcom’s – LTE network coverage is still lagging behind a lot of countries. With users being connected to LTE just 44% of the time in Malaysia, our country placed 25th out of the 29 countries in the report. Worse still is when you consider countries such as South Korea, where users are connected to LTE 95% of the time, or even Kuwait (83%).

The report also lists some surprising facts. Despite being one of the first to deploy some of the most advanced LTE networks in the world, South Korea’s LTE network, the fastest LTE network speed recorded in the country is just 18Mbps on SKTeleco. Based on this report, Spain’s Vodafone has the fastest LTE network in the world, recording 25.2Mbps.

Interestingly, the report only gathered data taken from Maxis and Celcom; Malaysia’s two other major carriers, digi and U Mobile, were not listed. This is likely due to insufficient data collection which may be due to a lower amount of OpenSignal app users on the networks. In addition, Singapore is nowhere to be seen in this report – we’re pretty sure the island nation boasting 2Gbps fibre networks would have shaken things up quite a bit.

The full report, and more tables, can be viewed in the source link.

(Source: OpenSignal via Amanz)