OpenSignal has just published a new State of Mobile Report for Malaysia and this time they are giving a clearer look at 5 big cities in Peninsular Malaysia. In the last report that was published in April this year, Maxis took first place in download speeds across both 4G and 3G. With the latest report, Maxis continues to lead while Celcom has also shown improvement when it comes to speed and 4G availability.
The latest OpenSignal report is based on 1.293 billion measurements taken from 233,257 devices between 1 June to 29 August 2018. Maxis is still the winner in overall and 4G performance while 3G speeds are tied with Celcom. According to OpenSignal, 5 out of 6 telcos have achieved 4G availability above 75%, which is great. However, they do noticed that 4G speeds have dipped slightly and this is an indicator that more Malaysians are now connected to 4G.
Do note that 4G availability measured by OpenSignal is an indication of how often a user is connected to 4G and it doesn’t represent actual geographical population coverage.
The latest report also includes a breakdown for 5 regions namely Ipoh, Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and Penang (including Seberang Perai). Maxis is ranked first in speed as it recorded above 18Mbps for all 5 regions. Celcom takes second place in all regions except for Melaka where it is ranked fourth place behind Digi and U Mobile. Unifi Mobile is the slowest among all players with an average 4G download speed of 6Mbps.
Below is the 4G download speed for the 5 regions:
Ipoh
Maxis (24.85Mbps), Celcom (17.55Mbps), Digi (13.22Mbps), U Mobile (12.12Mbps), Unifi (5.7Mbps)
Johor Bahru
Maxis (25.28Mbps), Celcom (14.91Mbps), Digi (10.89Mbps), Unifi (7.41Mbps), U Mobile (6.73Mbps)
Kuala Lumpur
Maxis (20.76Mbps), Celcom (19.0Mbps), U Mobile (10.29Mbps), Digi (10.0Mbps), Unifi (6.38Mbps),
Melaka
Maxis (24.48Mbps), U Mobile (15.86Mbps), Digi (11.57Mbps), Celcom (10.85Mbps), Unifi (5.18Mbps)
Penang
Maxis (18.96Mbps), Celcom (13.86Mbps), Digi (11.55Mbps), U Mobile (8.43Mbps), Unifi (5.39Mbps)
According to OpenSignal, Malaysia is seeing a trend where LTE is reaching its maturity. More Malaysians are connected via 4G than ever before and the immediate focus for telcos would be improving on network capacity and speed. One way to increase capacity is to acquire more spectrum for mobile wireless connectivity. The 700MHz spectrum (for analog TV transmission) is expected to be repurposed for 4G LTE usage and it can offer twice the coverage radius than 1800MHz.
Below is the overall nationwide performance for all categories:
You can check out the full OpenSignal report here. To contribute to OpenSignal’s analysis, you can download the OpenSignal app that’s available for both iOS and Android devices. Apart from having speed test tools, you can also view the average performance of each telcos in your area.
What do you think of OpenSignal’s report? Does it reflect your real world usage? Let us know in the comments below.
