Germany Mobile Quality Report

Introduction

The German mobile market comprises several operators, of which three have their own networks: O2, Telekom and Vodafone. 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 Germany 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 Germany. However, there are some notable differences between them.

In terms of connectivity, Telekom has the lowest disconnection time, which goes down to 10 minutes per day. O2 and Vodafone follow with 13 minutes and 15 minutes of daily disconnection. It is relevant to highlight that all three operators offer 4G/5G coverage at least 95% of the time, which highly guarantees the quality of service provided by these operators.

The three German operators offer good coverage. Regarding areas of "Good" or "Very Good" network, Telekom leads the list with 58%, followed by Vodafone with 51% and O2 with 46% of the area being at least "Good".

In terms of 5G penetration and usage, Vodafone stands out compared to its competitors with 21% of 5G customers, followed by Telekom with 19%, and O2 with only 11% of 5G customers. However, O2 provides 5G coverage 69% of the time, while Vodafone and Telekom do so around 64% and 58% of the time, respectively.

VoLTE is the main call technology used by all three operators, with more than 85% of usage time. 2G technology maintains its relevance in the country, being the second most used option by these operators and the only relevant alternative, in the absence of Wi-Fi, to VoLTE. This is because 3G technology was completely shutdown in the year 2021.

Finally, in terms of latency, the German MNOs exceed 80% of measurements classified as good or excellent. However, Vodafone stands out with 58% of measurements with excellent latency, followed by Telekom with 53%, and finally O2 with 43% of measurements with excellent latency.

The main key figures are as follows:

• The main operators in Germany, Telekom, Vodafone, and O2, offer 4G and 5G technology coverage 95% of the time.
• On average, 17% 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 64% of their coverage time.
• All three operators have infrastructure for 5G SA, although it is in its early stages and primarily focused on major cities. It is important to note that both Vodafone and Telekom lead the deployment of this technology.
• 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, 612 million measurements collected between june and august 2023 were used.

The following map shows the density of measurements taken throughout Germany 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 German operators, Telekom has the lowest disconnection time with only 10 daily minutes of disconnection, followed by O2 with 13 minutes, and Vodafone, which has the highest disconnection time, at 15 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.

In terms of 4G and 5G connectivity, Telekom has coverage of these technologies 96% of the time, while O2 and Vodafone are statistically tied, achieving coverage at these technologies 95% 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.

The deployment of the 5G network in Germany commenced in 2019. Germany's major telecommunications operators established ambitious goals for their 5G rollout, aiming to cover 99% of the country's population by 2025.

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 Germany all carriers offer 5G. The operator with the most 5G clients is Vodafone, with 21% of this type, followed by Telekom with 19% and O2, being the operator with the fewest, with only 11%.

Regarding 5G coverage time for 5G clients, there are some differences between operators: O2 and Vodafone lead, providing 5G coverage 69% and 64% of the time, respectively; on the other hand Telekom provides 5G coverage 58% 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.

The overall network situation in the common coverage area for the analyzed operators, area-wise, is good. Telekom presents the best result with 92% of the area with fair or better coverage, followed closely by Vodafone with 87% and, in last place O2, with 86% of the area rated as at least fair.

Regarding areas with good or very good network coverage, Telekom tops the list with 58% of the area classified as such, followed by Vodafone with 51% and O2 with 46%.

Measurement-wise the general network situation is similar. Telekom has the best result, with 85% of measurements being fair or better. This is followed by Vodafone with 79%, and O2 with 78% of measurements being at least fair.

If we focus on "Good" and "Very Good" measurements, the order changes slightly: Telekom maintains the lead with 53% of "Good" and "Very Good" measurements, followed by Vodafone with 50%, and O2 with 45% of "Good" and "Very Good" measurements.

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.

Telekom and Vodafone customers use VoLTE technology 89% of their time, followed by O2 with 86% of the time. The second most used technology is 2G (either directly or through CSFB), with O2 users using it 12% of the time, followed by Telekom at 9%, and Orange at 8%.

In 2021, the major mobile operators, Telekom, Vodafone, and O2, carried out the shutdown of the 3G network. However, the 2G network, which is slower but widely used in rural areas and in industrial applications such as traffic lights, alarm systems, and vehicles, still remains operational. So far, only Vodafone has announced plans to turn off the 2G network, which is expected to happen in the year 2025.

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 similar latency situation. Telekom and Vodafone top the list with 85% of their events classified as at least good, closely followed by O2 with 84% of their events receiving this classification.

Regarding the percentage of measurements with excellent latency, Vodafone once again leads the list, with 58% of measurements having excellent latency. Telekom follows with 53% of measurements classified as such. O2 comes last with 43% of measurements with excellent latency.