Launch of the First 5G Quality of Experience (QoE) Benchmark in Europe

You may actually want to take look at our article more recent releasing our 5G Quality of Experience Benchmarking report to discover performance and insights at European level: All 5G networks are not created equal: Unveiling the TRUE QoE of 5G in Europe  

In this first comparative analysis of the users’ quality of experience (QoE) of 5G in European cities, MedUX will include some of the continent’s main cities. 

We will measure the network performance, quality of service, and QoE of 24 operators in eight cities in six countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. 

In the coming weeks, we will collect extensive information on the performance of networks and services with our mobile measurement technology, MedUX MOBILE, which includes more than 200 performance indicators and metrics (KPIs). This information will include measurements from all the services users commonly consume, from web browsing to gaming services, streaming, social networks, videoconferencing, and cloud storage. 

We will use our QoE Scorecard, based on international best practices, to compare and obtain a ranking of QoE. This synthetic indicator aggregates a broad set of metrics into a single score, allowing national and international comparability and in-depth analysis of strengths and weaknesses. 

MedUX, market leader in QoE measurement and with international presence in more than 20 countries focuses on real time customer experience. Our utmost objective is network and customer satisfaction improvement. MedUX mission and commitment is to work side by side with our clients in the planning, deployment, monitoring, optimization, and benchmarking of 5G networks, based on our differential approach enabling grand scale measurement deployments and a real “end to end” testing. This becomes instrumental when monitoring a technology that promises differential experiences regarding connectivity, speed, latency, and new services.

PROGRESS OF 5G DEPLOYMENTS IN EUROPE

According to the recent report of the European Commission “5G Observatory, Quarterly Report 17,” an independent quarterly summary of the development of 5G deployments in the EU, the six target countries of the comparative analysis already enjoy 5G services. 

The commercial launch of 5G is a reality, and more and more 5G non-standalone (NSA) sites are being implemented. Existing LTE infrastructure is being converted to hybrid dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) sites compatible with 5G. 

According to the Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA), 5G standalone (SA) deployments have also increased globally in 2021 and 2022. Although as of April 2022, 25 operators in 18 countries had launched commercial 5G SA services, these services in Europe are only available in Finland, Germany, and Italy. The latter two are part of this comparative analysis.

In July 2022, Vodafone Germany announced that its 5G SA network covered 15 million people. The company indicated that 5G SA will be activated at each 5G station, with the aim of achieving almost national coverage by 2025. The network uses frequencies in the 3.5 GHz and 700 MHz bands. 

In the same month, the Italian operator WINDTRE selected Ericsson to power its 5G SA network. WINDTRE offers its 4G, 5G NSA, and 5G SA services in dual-mode 5G Core that combines Evolved Packet Core and 5G Core network functions on a common cloud-native platform. 

Below is a summary of the status of 5G deployments in the target countries of the comparative analysis according to the European 5G Observatory:  

Overview of commercial 5G launches, Source: European 5G Observatory

THE NEW NORMAL IN BIG CITIES INCLUDES 5G

It is no secret that the expectations for 5G in the telecommunications industry are very high. The additional functionality 5G SA enables is key to delivering on 5G’s promise of fully supporting advanced 5G use cases, but 5G NSA deployments also introduce improvements over 4G (see previous post “Insights on Vodafone’s 5G performance boost in Spain: 8x faster than 4G”). 

Therefore, understanding the quality of service and the QoE these new deployments offer is a key and important factor for the industry. Operators need to closely monitor networks and services with greater precision and detail to anticipate issues that may impact end users. 

We know that providing and guaranteeing the best experience for the end user have always been great challenges, since some factors are beyond the control of the telecommunications operators. Therefore, external and independent actors are needed to evaluate end-to-end quality.

In this context, we are pleased to announce that MedUX will carry out 5G measurements in eight countries in Europe. 

HOW WE TEST QOE

The main objective of these measurements is to help telecommunications operators and, in general, all industry agents to guarantee better service for end users. 

At MedUX, we measure from the user’s perspective in a controlled and exhaustive way because much more than the speed of the line affects the real experience. There is a world between the quality users perceive and basic parameters such as speed and latency against specific servers within the operator’s network.   

In real time, our clients can know the users’ real experience. It’s a worry-free experience, with plug-and-play autonomous technology and without the need for expert professionals for its operation. MedUX makes this data available to operators and other entities interested in improving the Internet and really knowing how end-user services work. Exhaustive measurements are taken of the quality of the network and of the services users commonly consume, from web browsing to gaming services, streaming, social networks, videoconferencing, and cloud storage.

SCOPE OF QUALITY MEASUREMENT OF THE 5G QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE

Major European cities are incredibly diverse, but they all share at least one thing in common: Consumers in big cities expect seamless connectivity, reliable service delivery, fast speeds, and a great experience everywhere with all services. 

We will initially deploy our proprietary MedUX MOBILE technology in the following major cities: London, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Lisbon, and Berlin. 

We believe that real-world results come from real-world tests. We use business-grade smartphones, and testing is done day and night while our specialists carry them walking and driving though the city we are measuring. The mobile devices will be installed in dedicated cars with preconfigured routes to cover the main areas of the cities and obtain representative and gradual data. 

Although operators usually have quality monitoring and supervision services on a massive level (which are very expensive, by the way), they usually miss the reality of the services provided in the user’s real environment. MedUX reviews and understands what is actually happening in telecom services because we can check network incidents, service degradation, bottlenecks in the end-to-end service provision chain, agreements with service providers (interconnection, DNS, CDN, etc.), or even new functionalities and improvements in the network, services, and client equipment.

In addition, with our solutions, operators can analyze their positioning, compare themselves in a homogeneous and fair way with the competition, understand the impact on the user´s experience, and aspire to continuous quality improvement programs and leadership in the customer experience.  

So…are you ready to learn which city and operator have the best 5G?

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