How 5G is helping Canada close the urban-rural gap in mobile network experience
An OpenSignal survey in a report released by the researcher Hardik Khatri says that 5G significantly reduced the gap between the urban mobile experience to rural areas of Canada in 2022. The survey done by OpenSignal compared rural and urban areas of Canada with Australia, Brazil and the US, which are similar markets. They also compared with Germany, but I will discard that data and leave only the three to compare with Canada for the size of the territories.
According to the OpenSignal report, there is still a considerable difference in download speeds between urban and rural areas. While in the former, we have a variation from 55.6 to 63.1 Mbps in the countryside, the download speed is from 14.1 to 21.7 Mbps, representing a difference of 34.1 to 52.2% for urban areas. This data shows that there is still what to do to reduce this margin.
According to Khatri, we see differences in mobile network experience between urban and rural areas in Canada and several other markets. “It’s a common phenomenon, given it’s commercially profitable for operators to deploy and upgrade their networks in dense areas first. So closing this gap is not a technical but an economic challenge for the operators. Canada is also slightly unique because of its expansive rural territories, with just about 20% of the population living in those areas, which makes it more challenging.” said the OpenSignal researcher.
Despite the remarkable evolution in Canada, the difference between the two zones is still striking. But, according to the report, Canada only loses in download speed difference between urban and rural areas to Brazil (7.8% difference). Users in Canadian rural areas have much higher download speeds than Australia (100.5%) and the United States (41.7%).
One bright spot for Canada versus Australia, Brazil and the US is the overall download speed experienced by Canadian rural users. According to the document, in rural areas of Canada, the speed is much faster than in all three other markets analyzed – 16.2-27% faster than users in rural areas of Australia and the United States, and 2,5 times faster than rural Brazil.
According to the survey, Canadian rural users have access to average 5G download speeds of 116.7 Mbps – just 12.2 Mbps (9.5%) slower than in large urban population centers across Canada. “In fact, we saw no statistically significant difference between the 5G download speeds experienced in rural Canada and its small and medium-sized urban population centers,” reveals the OpenSignal document. The report points out that in rural and urban Brazil, 5G download speeds were statistically similar. Australia had the most significant urban-rural gap in 5G download speeds, followed by the US.
No signal
When it comes to time without a 5G internet signal, the OpenSignal report shows that users in rural Canada spend 2.6% of the time without a signal, much less than rural users in Australia (5.2%) and in Brazil (6.8%), but more than in the USA (1.9%).
Concerning 5G availability, i.e. the proportion of time users spend with an active 5G connection, the report found that users in Australia had the highest urban-rural split, with a difference of 12.6 percentage points, followed by the United States and Brazil. In Canada, there was little difference between rural (9.6%) and small urban (10.4%) 5G availability, but a more significant difference between medium urban (14.7%) and large urban areas (14.2%).
The report also showed that the time Canadian rural 5G users spend with an active 5G connection (9.6%) is greater than the availability of 5G in rural areas of Australia and Brazil. The US saw the highest 5G availability in rural and urban areas across all benchmarked markets.
“Across all markets and regions, the 5G gaming experience was higher than the overall gaming experience, indicating the value of 5G. However, there are also urban-rural differences in the gaming experience, which negatively affect the gaming experience. rural mobile players.” point to the report.
Still, about gaming, the report found significant disparities between urban and rural areas in all five markets. “The urban-rural gap in overall gaming experience ranged from 6.4% in Germany to 37.5% in Australia. Our analysis also shows that playing mobile multiplayer games over a cellular connection in rural areas can be challenging in rural areas. Three out of five markets. Overall gaming experience in rural areas of Australia, Brazil, Canada and the US was in the Poor rating range (40-65), while rural areas in Germany were in the Fair rating range (65-75).” indicates the report.
As per the report, the urban-rural gap in the gaming experience was noticeably smaller with 5G. Australia saw the most significant relative difference of 10%, followed by Brazil (2.7%), Canada (1.9%-3%) and the US (1.8%). “Our analysis also shows that our users in most benchmark markets enjoy a significantly better gaming experience with 5G, regardless of whether they connect from urban or rural areas. markets in the Good category (75-85), while the US and Australia scored Fair. Canada does well in an international comparison of the urban-rural mobile experience,” noted Khatri.
According to Khatri’s report, an Opensignal analysis shows that 5G has not only provided a significant boost to Canada’s mobile network experience but has also helped close the urban-rural gap in aspects of the mobile network experience, for example, with speeds of downloads and games. “However, while rural Canada has benefited from some of the fastest 4G experiences in the world in the past, our new analysis shows that this is still not true with 5G services. This is because Canadian operators have been constrained by voice again spectrum that can be used for 5G. Often, operators have had to deploy 5G in lower bands that have less capacity and that offer users a weaker 5G experience. This is now changing as they can use the high capacity spectrum of 3 .5 GHz acquired in the July 2021 auction. This will help Canadian operators accelerate and improve the 5G experience.” find the researcher.
Prices
According to Khatri, many factors affect prices. “One of the ways to reduce prices is to encourage more competition in the market, whether from smaller operators or new entrants. Another way could be by lowering the cost of accessing the spectrum. Canadian operators were paying up to 3 times more per MHz-POP than US operators for the 3.5 GHz mid-band spectrum.” he said.
The idea of lower prices and evolution in mobile service quality is fundamental to understanding the need to continue evolving in service quality. It is increasingly essential to invest in infrastructure and quality of services.
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