Global mobile network experience benchmarking platform, Opensignal, has just released its latest mobile network experience report for the Malaysian market. The report includes overall analysis at the national level as well as 14 states and territories around the country.

For the latest report, Opensignal has collected and analysed over 1.1 billion measurements taken from 572,559 devices with the Opensignal app installed in Malaysia between December 2019 to February 2020. This is the quarter right before the movement control order was declared in Malaysia.

They find that Maxis is the best in 5 out of 8 categories which include video, gaming, latency, download and upload, while Celcom is still crowned the best for 4G availability and coverage. Meanwhile, Unifi has retained its top position for the best audio experience on messaging apps.

Video Experience

Among the five telcos tested, Maxis is the only provider that has a Very Good rating of 67.5 for video. According to Opensignal, Maxis mobile users are experiencing faster loading times and only occasional stalling when streaming videos on their smartphones. Celcom and Digi fall under the Good category with a score of 61.5 and 57.5 respectively. Meanwhile, Unifi and U Mobile are rated fair with a score of 46.0 and 42.9 respectively.

Gaming Experience

When it comes to gaming, four telcos have very similar results with a Fair rating. Maxis leads at 75.4, followed very closely by Celcom at 72.7 and Unifi at 72.6. Meanwhile, Digi scores 71.3 and U Mobile lags behind in the Poor category at 63.4. According to Opensignal, U Mobile users would often found the gaming experience to be unacceptable with a majority observed noticeable delays within games and players felt the lack of controllability over the gameplay.

Voice app Experience

When it comes to over-the-top (OTT) voice services such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger, Unifi is a winner in this segment with a high-score of 77. This is followed by Maxis at 76.3, Digi at 75.1, Celcom at 74.6 and U Mobile at 73.8. According to Opensignal, the measurement is derived from the International Telecommunication Union model for quantifying overall voice call quality with a series of calibrated technical parameters.

Download Experience

In terms of download performance, Maxis tops the list at 20.4Mbps, which is almost double the performance of the next competitor. Celcom takes second place at 12.7Mbps, followed by Digi at 11.6Mbps and U Mobile at 7.4Mbps. Although Unifi’s 7.0Mbps for download is the lowest, Opensignal remarked that it’s a 29% improvement from 5.4Mbps 6 months ago.

Upload Experience

Similarly, Maxis also dominates the top spot for uploads at 7.7Mbps, followed by Celcom at 7.3Mbps, U Mobile at 6.1Mbps and 4.6Mbps for Digi. Unifi took the last place at 2.5Mbps.

Latency Experience

Latency, which is a measurement of responsiveness is also a crucial factor which affects the internet experience. Maxis has the lowest latency at 43.4ms, followed by Celcom very closely at 44.0ms. Unifi is at third place at 48.5ms, while both Digi and U Mobile recorded higher latency above 50ms.

4G availability

Among the 5 telcos, Celcom has the highest 4G availability where users get connected to 4G 89.7% of the time. Maxis took 2nd place at 86.6% and Unifi at 83.7%. Digi, however, recorded 81.7% 4G availability, followed by U Mobile at 77.5%.

4G Coverage

In terms of coverage experience where it analyses 4G signals relative to the locations visited by users, Celcom scored the highest at 8.7 points, while both Maxis and Digi share the same score of 8.0. Although Unifi is the younger operator, it manages to score slightly higher at 6.7 points.

If you look at the regional reports that cover the individual states, Maxis offers the best mobile gaming and video streaming experience across most states and occasionally it draws with other telcos such as Celcom.

You can read the full report including the breakdown by states here.