Only in the availability category did T-Mobile fail to come top or joint top: Tele2 drew with Vodafone in that sector.
Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile – which is hoping to merge with Tele2 in the Netherlands – was number one for 4G download speed, 4G upload speed, 4G latency and overall speed.
T-Mobile drew with Vodafone for 3G download speed and 3G latency. KPN failed to achieve any top places, according to OpenSignal.
For this report, OpenSignal analysed 312 million measurements collected from 20,323 mobile devices between 1 May and 29 July 2018. The company used that data to compare the 3G and 4G services of the four national operators in the Netherlands: KPN, T-Mobile, Tele2 and Vodafone.
“The country continues to impress,” said OpenSignal. “The Dutch mobile market is doing prodigiously well.” Its analysis of the Netherlands found 4G availability has topped 90%, while average LTE speeds are now generally above 40Mbps.
However, the company does not expect much further improvement “since 4G speeds over 50Mbps and availability over 95% are rare indeed”. It said that so-called “not spots” – areas of limited or no mobile coverage – “will never go away completely as they’re part of the nature of building cellular networks”.
OpenSignal said: “In tandem with increased 4G availability, many mature markets like the Netherlands are still seeing increasing consumption of LTE data – putting pressure on network capacity.”
The company added: “KPN’s 4G latency score remained fairly static at 33ms, while Vodafone and Tele2 both saw slight improvements to reach 37ms and 39ms respectively.”
T-Mobile and Vodafone remained tied for 3G latency “with scores of close to 53ms”, said the company, “although both have improved by over 4ms in the past six months”. It added that KPN “showed the greatest improvement in this category, of over 13ms to reach 71ms and close the gap on its rivals”.
OpenSignal warned: “Competition remains high in the Netherlands’ mobile sector as the market approaches saturation.” It says there will be a “shift in the balance of power” if the T-Mobile/Tele2 merger goes ahead.
