Just how good are OTT voice services across Asia

Image credit: Drobot Dean

Opensignal, an independent mobile analytics firm, has just released a report that measures the quality of over-the-top (OTT) voice services experienced by consumers across 80 countries, including Singapore. This marks the industry’s largest, independent survey of user experience of OTT services.

User mobile experience is commonly quantified in metrics such as download, upload speeds, 4G availability and latency. Yet, with voice apps — such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook — and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls increasingly being preferred over cellular calls, there is a need to take a closer look at users’ perceived experience on such services.

Highlights from the report include:

  • Singapore is one of the six countries outside Europe to gain a ‘Good’ rating
    • Of the 80 countries analysed for overall Voice App Experience, almost 25% (19) achieved a ‘Good’ rating — meaning many users in these countries were satisfied and experienced minor quality impairments while using Voice Apps to communicate. No country globally attained an ‘Excellent’ or ‘Very Good’ rating.
    • Only six were from outside Europe, which are Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.
  • There is a clear voice experience divide between developed markets and developing countries in Asia
    • While the aforementioned developed markets gained ‘Good’ ratings, developing mobile countries including India, Indonesia and Cambodia were all firmly in the bottom third of the table — with Cambodia ranking amongst the last five countries.
  • Voice App Experience on 4G networks is most often ‘Good’, whereas on 3G it is ‘Poor’
    • The 3G Voice App Experience scores are consistently lower in every country compared with their 4G equivalents, including Singapore.
    • In this region, Singapore and Hong Kong were the only countries who had a difference of less than 5 points between their 3G and 4G Voice App Experience score — an indicator of what the mobile experience will be in future for highly matured markets where 4G Availability is rising and is replacing 3G as operators enhance their networks for smoother transitions. 

If you wish to find out more about the report’s methodology, please read here.

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