KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s mobile internet connection experience remains at the bottom tier at the global and regional level, according to several global research reports.
Among 100 countries, Malaysia ranked lower than Asean neighbours Vietnam, Thailand, and even poverty-stricken Laos when it came to “Best Mobile Experience” related to 4G LTE wireless broadband speeds, based on global independent data company Tutela’s report in September 2020.
The Tutela report titled “Global Mobile Experience: Country-level Comparison”, ranked Malaysia at 81, three notches below Indonesia’s 78.
Laos is number 75 on the ranking, below Thailand’s 74 and Vietnam’s 50. Meanwhile, Singapore is among the best 20 in the world at the 17th spot.
Malaysia’s unimpressive global ranking also placed it at sixth among nine Asean countries.
Myanmar – which is under junta rule – and Cambodia are tied at 82 globally while the Philippines is the poorest performing Asean country at 88th place.
According to Tutela, which boasts a global panel of more than 300 million smartphone users, the rankings were based on the percentage of tests where a mobile connection was good enough for the most demanding popular apps.
This included high-definition video group calls and 1080p video streaming.
In terms of 4G LTE connectivity comparisons with its Asean and Asia-Pacific neighbours, Malaysia’s download speeds (in Mbps) between May until July this year is also unfavourable.
According to network quality reports between May-July this year by mobile analytics company OpenSignal and finance house JP Morgan, Digi had the highest download speed in Malaysia at 15.0 Mbps, followed by Maxis (13.4), U Mobile (11.5), Unifi (11.0), and Celcom (8.2).
Indonesia’s 4G LTE speed averaged at 13.2 Mbps, while Thailand’s average was higher than Malaysia’s top telco provider at 15.5 Mbps.
Singapore’s average speed stood more than three times higher than Malaysia’s best 4G provider at 45.5 Mbps.
In East Asia, South Korea enjoys an average download speed of 61.3 Mbps, followed by Japan at 40.4 Mbps, and Taiwan at 27.4 Mbps.
The reports also showed a decline in speeds among larger Malaysian telco operators.
On this note, Celcom saw a 55% decline from 16.3 Mbps in September 2019 to only 7.5% in the corresponding month this year, while Maxis dropped 33% from 17.7 Mbps to 11.9 over the same period.
Conversely, U Mobile’s speeds saw a 40% spike from 7.5 Mbps in September 2019 to 10.5 Mbps in the same month this year, while Digi saw a 12% increase from 11.1 to 12.4 Mbps in September 2021. – The Vibes, November 25, 2021
