Belgium Mobile Quality Report

Introduction

The Belgian mobile market comprises several operators, of which three have their own networks: Base, Orange and Proximus. These operators together have almost 100% of the mobile market share in Belgium. Thus, the network situation for these MNOs acts as a trustworthy barometer of the network situation in the country. A good knowledge of the network situation also allows the customers to perform fully informed decisions. The objective of this report is to provide a summary of the network situation in Belgium for these three carriers.

This report provides a quick overview of the network situation based on the following KPIs:

• Disconnection time: daily average minutes that the users from a MNO have had only emergency coverage or no coverage.
• 4G and 5G time: percentage of time that the users from a MNO have had 4G and, if available, 5G coverage (including 5G NSA and 5G SA).
• 5G penetration and usage: percentage of users that have 5G connectivity, and percentage of time in 5G.
• Network status in the Common Coverage Area: an analysis of the network status, based on the signal strength and the signal quality, for the areas where all five MNOs provide coverage.
• Call technology usage: percentage of measurements of each call technology per MNO. This shows which technologies are mainly used by the customers.
• Mobile network latency: percentage of customers on different latency ranks. The ranks are selected according to several performance thresholds.

Summary

The data collected by Weplan Analytics shows that, overall, the three main mobile network operators have a good network situation in Belgium. However, there are some notable differences between them.

In terms of connectivity, Orange has the lowest disconnection time, which goes down to 6 minutes per day. Base and Proximus are statistically tied with 7 minutes of daily disconnection. It is relevant to highlight that all three operators offer 4G/5G coverage at least 94% of the time, which highly guarantees the quality of service provided by these operators.

Regarding the mobile network situation, it is noteworthy that the three Belgian operators offer good coverage. Regarding areas of "Good" or "Very Good" network, Orange leads the list with 45%, followed by Base with 43% and Proximus with 41% of the area being at least "Good".

In terms of 5G penetration and usage, Base stands out compared to its competitors with 18% of 5G customers, followed by Proximus with 9%, and Orange with only 6% of 5G customers. Additionally, Base and Orange provide 5G coverage 29% of the time, while Proximus does so around 20% of the time.

VoLTE is the main call technology used by all three operators, with more than 70% of usage time. However Base users use VoLTE technology considerably less time (only 55% of the calls), resorting to CSFB 3G 36% of the time.

Finally, in terms of latency, the Belgian MNOs exceed 80% of measurements classified as good or excellent. However, Proximus stands out with 76% of measurements with excellent latency, followed by Orange with 71%, and finally Base with 51% of measurements with excellent latency.

The main key figures are as follows:

• The main operators in Belgium, Orange, Proximus, and Base, offer 4G and 5G technology coverage 94% of the time.
• On average, 11% of the customers from the analyzed operators are 5G customers (i.e. customers who have a device compatible with 5G technology) and can access it around 26% of their coverage time.
• At least 84% of all MNOs' measurements have a latency good enough to offer an adequate experience for every possible use.
• VoLTE technology for calls is the most used.

Methodology

In the following pages an in-depth description of each analyzed KPI can be found, including the methodology and rationale behind them. At a more general level, the following paragraph describes the data collection methodology.

At a more general level, Weplan Analytics collects crowdsourced data from more than 200 million devices in 31 countries. For this analysis, 694 million measurements collected between march and may 2023 were used.

The following map shows the density of measurements taken throughout Belgium by Weplan Analytics.

The most relevant insights can be found in the Summary section above. A detailed account of each one comprises the rest of the report below.

As the three aforementioned MNOs serve their networks to other parties (such as VMNOs, due to roaming agreements or as part of emergency coverage) they have been filtered by the network provider reported in the SIM card.

More details about the methodology can be found here.

Connectivity

Connectivity: Daily disconnection time

The following graphic shows the disconnection time as the average number of minutes that each customer of each MNO experiences disconnections throughout the day. Disconnection time includes moments when a customer has no coverage at all (such as underground parkings, inside elevators, so far away from an antenna that connection is not possible...) or moments when a customer only has emergency coverage, that is, the ability to perform only emergency calls. This disconnected time may (and, in most cases, will) be discontinuous, and is the average of the daily disconnection time for all users.

Among the Belgian operators, Orange has the lowest disconnection time with 6 daily minutes of disconnection, while Base and Proximus are statistically tied with the highest disconnection time, which is 7 daily minutes of disconnection.

Connectivity: 4G and 5G time

With the advent of the newer 5G technology older technologies such as 2G and 3G are being turned off to liberate the RF spectrum. Thus, guaranteeing at least a proper 4G coverage is one of the main goals for MNOs, and for those who already have 4G sorted out, the focus turns to 5G.

The three operators are statistically tied in terms of 4G and 5G connectivity, achieving coverage at these technologies 94% of the time.

5G penetration and usage

The possibility of a customer to use the 5G network depends on several factors:

1. Their device must be 5G compatible.
2. The MNO must have a 5G network.
3. The client must contract a mobile plan that allows the 5G to be used, since not all MNOs offer full access to the 5G network as part of their regular plans.

Although the auction of 5G frequencies took place in 2020, the adoption of regulations for 5G in Belgium was delayed due to a political conflict between the federal authority and regional authorities regarding the distribution of the revenues generated by the auction, resulting in a delay in the deployment of 5G. However, operators were able to provide 5G services temporarily or through the use of frequency bands assigned in previous regulations.

Finally, the regulations for 5G were adopted in November 28, 2021, and in 2022 the national regulatory authority (BIPT) granted 5G user rights to operators Proximus, Orange, and Base in the 700 MHz, 1400 MHz, and 3600 MHz bands.

The following charts show the percentage of users per MNO that have 5G access, and the percentage of time they are under 5G coverage. To establish whether a user is a 5G client or not, their 5G connectivity has been checked: if they have connected to the 5G network at least once, they are considered 5G clients.

In Belgium all carriers offer 5G. The operator with the most 5G clients is Base, with 18% of this type, followed by Proximus with 9% and Orange, being the operator with the fewest, with only 6%.

Regarding 5G coverage time for 5G clients, there are some differences between operators: Base and Orange lead, providing 5G coverage 29% of the time; on the other hand Proximus provides 5G coverage 20% of the time.

4G and 5G network status

There are two main network performance indicators used to address the network status: signal strength and signal quality. Each technology has its own measurements, but five great categories can be established:

• Very Good: the network performance for all usages should be excellent.
• Good: the network performance for all usages may present occasional difficulties but is good overall.
• Fair: most network network-dependent usages (such as calls or data usage) will have at least a decent performance.
• Degraded: network usage may be unstable and unreliable but allows for basic usage such as calls with acceptable quality and very slow data transfer rate.
• Very Degraded: apart from emergency calls network usage is nearly impossible.

There are two ways to analyze these categories: by percentage of covered area or by percentage of measurements. Most measurements take place in urban areas, where coverage is better, while in european countries most of the territory is not urban, so the percentage of area with a problematic network situation may be different from the percentage of measurements with a problematic network situation.

To ensure a fair comparison between carriers only areas with presence from all MNOs have been analyzed. Additionally, since the majority of connections are made on 4G, only this technology has been considered.

The overall network situation in the common coverage area for the analyzed operators, area-wise, is good. Proximus presents the best result with 89% of the area with fair or better coverage, followed closely by Orange with 86% and, in last place Base, with 79% of the area rated as at least fair.

Regarding areas with good or very good network coverage, Orange tops the list with 45% of the area classified as such, followed by Base with 43% and Proximus with 41%.

Measurement-wise the general network situation is similar. Proximus and Orange have the best result, with 79% of measurements being fair or better. Base has 70% of measurements being at least fair.

If we focus on "Good" and "Very Good" measurements, the same order applies for Proximus and Orange at 48%, followed by Base with 44%.

Call type percentage

Although 2G and 3G are capable of data usage, the advent of 4G and more recently 5G technologies have relegated them to mostly call usage. The absence of 4G-based call technology ensured that 2G and 3G were still relevant, since they were the unique technologies to make a phone call. The development of VoLTE (Voice over LTE) calls during the 2010s marked the beginning of the end for these legacy technologies.

However, not all customers can benefit from VoLTE calls. For a customer to use this technology several conditions must be met:

1. Their MNO must provide 4G and VoLTE.
2. They must have a phone capable of performing VoLTE calls.
3. They must have a mobile plan that includes VoLTE calls.
4. Their phone must be homologated by the MNO and the manufacturer to perform VoLTE calls.

The fourth condition means that a customer can have VoLTE with one MNO but lack of it with a different MNO, using the same cellphone. If a customer connected to 4G without VoLTE capabilities tries to perform a call, a hand-off process to 2G or 3G network takes place. Depending on the method this process is called CSFB (the most common one) or SRVCC. Aside from those technologies, VoWiFi (Voice over Wi-Fi) is also used when a Wi-Fi network is available.

Orange and Proximus customers use VoLTE technology 79% and 78% of their time respectively, followed by Base with 55% of the time. The second most used technology is CSFB 3G, with Base users using it 36% of the time, followed by Proximus with 13% and Orange with 10%.

It is important to mention that in December 2022, the 2G and 3G networks began to shut down. However, as part of a gradual process, both Base and Proximus will disconnect their 3G network by the end of 2024. On the other hand, Orange plans to shut down its 3G network in 2025, and 2G networks will be disconnected by 2030 at the latest.

Latency status

Latency is the measurement of how much time it takes for the information to be transmitted between the user and the network. A lower latency means a faster, and smoother network experience, whereas a higher latency means that the network experience will not be as good, or even unusable. This makes latency a good indicator for user experience. We have divided latency in four main groups:

• Excellent latency: very smooth user experience, even with the most data-intensive usage, such as gaming or 4K streaming.
• Good latency: good user experience, although gaming may not be as fluid and 4K may present occasional problems.
• Degraded latency: mediocre user experience. Gaming and 4K are either uncomfortable or impossible, videochat may present noticeable lag, messaging with multimedia may take a long time to load and loading a web may be slow.
• Bad latency: essentially unusable network. Only the lightest usage, such as sending messages without multimedia works decently.

The three MNOs present a slightly different latency situation. Proximus leads this category with 89% of its measurements classified as at least good, followed by Orange and Base with 87% and 85% respectively

Regarding the percentage of measurements with excellent latency, Proximus is a clear winner, with 76% of measurements having excellent latency. Orange follows with 71% of measurements classified as such. Base comes last with 51% of measurements with excellent latency.