Mobile services improve in Myanmar: Report

03 May 2018
Mobile services improve in Myanmar: Report
A man browsing the internet at an internet cafe in Yangon. Photo: AFP

4G services may be a recent phenomenon in Myanmar, but the mobile broadband experience is by no means bad according to the finding of OpenSignal that discovered that the country's three major operators delivered not only fast speeds but also a high level of LTE access. In their first look at Myanmar, OpenSignal analyzed more than 80 million measurements collected in the 1st quarter to see how the 3G and 4G services of MPT, Ooredoo and Telenor compared.
OpenSignal published their first report May 2 on the State of Mobile Networks in Myanmar, analysing the 3G and 4G mobile consumer experience of the main operators MPT, Ooredoo and Telenor. 
According to the report, The first 4G services were launched only two years ago, but in that limited time Myanmar's operators have managed to build powerful networks. All three of Myanmar's 4G providers averaged LTE download speeds greater than 28 Mbps, which is more than 11 Mbps faster than the global average, according to our measurements. The three operators were very close in this metric, though.
The report found no clear winner in 4G download speed, MPT separated itself from the pack in 4G upload. It averaged upstream connections of 13.7 Mbps, more than 2 Mbps faster than its competitors.
Telenor took the 3G and 4G latency awards, winning both categories by large margins. In 4G, we measured a ping time of 42.5 milliseconds on Telenor's network, and in 3G, OpenSignal measured its latency at 71.2ms. Both scores are good indications that Telenor has built highly responsive networks.
Though Myanmar's operators are still expanding their 4G reach, in Yangon they've already managed to provide a high level of LTE access. MPT and Telenor had 4G availability scores in the former capital of 83.1% and 81.9% respectively, both of which were 10 percentage points higher than their national scores, the report said.