State of Mobile Networks: Taiwan(July 2017)East Asia has long been known as a hotbed for 4G technology, and Taiwan is playingno small part in maintaining that reputation for mobile broadband innovation. InOpenSignal's first report on Taiwan, we measured some of the fastest LTE speeds inthe world and discovered there are few places that 4G signals fail to penetrate.Drawing on more than 286 million tests, we examined the 3G and 4G experience inTaiwan, analyzing results from five different operators.

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HighlightsSignals, signals everywhereTaiwan is one of the top regions in the world in supplyingconsistent LTE signals, and it shows in our 4G availability metric.All five operators we examined had LTE availability scores higherthan 80%, meaning our testers were able to latch onto a 4Gconnection in more than 4 out of every 5 attempts.

FarEasTone dominates our speed metricsOne operator stood apart from the rest in OpenSignal's metrics.FarEasTone won four of our six categories outright, including our awardsfor fastest 4G, 3G and overall speeds. In LTE speed alone we measuredaverage download connections on FarEasTone at 41.7 Mbps, 14 Mbpsfaster than its nearest rival.

GT, FarEasTone win our 4G availabilityawardsWhile all of Taiwan's operators performed exceptionally in LTEavailability, two operators distinguished themselves at the top ofthe list. Both GT and FarEasTone delivered an LTE signal morethan 89% of the time in OpenSignal's measurements.

LTE speeds vary widely from operator to operatorWhile all five operators provided consistently high 4G reach, we can'tsay the same about 4G speed. There was a 26 Mbps gap between thefastest average 4G speeds we measured in Taiwan and the slowest.

Awards Table

Test your network andcontribute to our reportsEnjoyed our report? All our analysis is based on realmeasurements collected by millions of mobile network users.No simulations, no approximations: just real-world experience.

Performance by Metric

Availability: 4G

This metric shows the proportion of time OpenSignal users havean LTE connection available to them on each operator’s network.It's a measure of how often users can access a 4G networkrather than a measure of geographic or population coverage.

Download Speed: 4G

This metric shows the average download speed for eachoperator on LTE connections as measured by OpenSignal users.

Download Speed: 3G

This metric shows the average download speed for eachoperator on 3G connections as measured by OpenSignal users.

Download Speed: OverallThis metric shows the average download speed experienced byOpenSignal users across all of an operator's 3G and 4Gnetworks. Overall speed doesn't just factor in 3G and LTEspeeds, but also the availability of each network technology.Operators with lower LTE availability tend to have lower overallspeeds because their customers spend more time connected toslower 3G networks.

Latency: 4G

This metric shows the average latency for each operator on LTEconnections as measured by OpenSignal users. Latency,measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as itmakes a round trip through the network. A lower score in thismetric is a sign of a more responsive network.

Latency: 3G

This metric shows the average latency for each operator on 3Gconnections as measured by OpenSignal users. Latency,measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as itmakes a round trip through the network. A lower score in thismetric is a sign of a more responsive network.

AnalysisTaiwan may be an island, but it's by no means isolated from the steady beat ofprogress in the mobile industry. OpenSignal found impressive 3G and 4G speeds inTaiwan along with access to 4G connections among the world's best. What's more,Taiwan's high marks weren't from the efforts of one or two operators. All five of theservice providers we examined performed admirably in 4G availability, and themajority delivered mobile broadband connections well above the global average.

For OpenSignal's first State of Mobile Networks: Taiwan report, we parsed more than286 million measurements collected by 13,850 OpenSignal smartphone and smartdevice users over a three month period between March and May. We examined the3G and 4G experience of those users on the four largest operators: ChunghwaTelecom, FarEasTone, Taiwan Mobile and Taiwan Star Telecom. We also included datafrom Asia Pacific Telecom's GT, an up-and-coming operator that recently shut downits legacy CDMA networks to focus solely on 4G services.

On the cutting edge of 4G availability

No matter what service they subscribed to, 4G users in Taiwan had no trouble findingan LTE connection. Rather than measure geographic coverage, OpenSignal'savailability metric measures the proportion of time subscribers can connect to aparticular network. In the case of Taiwan, all five operators we examined had 4Gavailability scores above 80%. In most regions of the world, one operator breakingthe 80% barrier is typically a sign of a sophisticated LTE market. Five operatorsachieving 80% or greater 4G availability is quite the impressive feat. Those resultswere also reflected in our recently published State of LTE report, where Taiwan rankedin the top 10 in 4G availability amongst the 75 countries and territories we analyzed.

Though all of Taiwan's operators provided consistent LTE connectivity, two operatorsseparated themselves from the group. Our testers were able to connect to GT andFarEasTone's LTE signals more than 89% of the time, resulting in a statistical tie forour 4G availability award. Of particular note is GT's exceptional performance in 4Gavailability considering its relatively small size. But this is a trend we see regularlyamong 4G-only operators (Asia Pacific Telecom is migrating the last of its CDMAsubscribers to LTE this year). With no 3G network to fall back on, 4G-only operatorsrely on LTE as the sole building block for their mobile footprints, rather than on asnetwork overlay.

FarEasTone's focus on speed

When it came to mobile broadband speed, FarEasTone had no equal in our testresults. It won all three of OpenSignal's speed awards, often by very large margins.For LTE speed we measured FarEasTone's average download connection at 41.7Mbps, more than 14 Mbps faster than its nearest competitor. Chunghwa, TaiwanMobile and T Star were by no means slow. Their average LTE speed tests fell in the20.9 to 27.4 Mbps range — well above the global average of 16.2 Mbps wemeasured in our State of LTE report. The only operator to fall short of that benchmarkwas GT with an average speed of 15.2 Mbps in our tests.

There is clearly a big gap between the fastest and slowest 4G services in Taiwan — afull 26 Mbps difference in our measurements — which can be explained by thedifferent types of LTE networks deployed by each operator. While Asia PacificTelecom has launched LTE on a single frequency band (700 MHz), FarEasTone is nowoperating in three separate bands, giving it much more 4G capacity than most of itscompetitors. In addition, Chunghwa, FarEasTone, Taiwan Mobile and T Star haveimplemented new LTE-Advanced technologies to varying degrees, allowing them toboost their connection speeds. Though there was a lot of variation in 4G speeds,Taiwan overall ranked 22nd in connection speed in our global LTE report, with anaverage LTE download of 26.9 Mbps.

When we compared 3G performance, we found a much tighter contest. FarEasTonewon our award for fastest 3G speed with an average download of 7.8 Mbps, thoughwith measured average speeds of 6.9 Mbps and 6.6 Mbps respectively, TaiwanMobile and Chunghwa weren't far behind. All three speeds were more than 2 Mbpsabove the global 3G download average of 4.4 Mbps. As FarEasTone had the fastest3G and 4G speeds and was tied for best 4G availability in our results, it should comeas no surprise that it won OpenSignal's overall speed award with an averageconnection of 33.9 Mbps across its mobile data networks.

The final metric we examined was latency, which is a measure of a mobile datanetwork's responsiveness. With a low latency connection, communications appsexperience less lag time and web pages and video render more quickly. In the 4Glatency category, Chunghwa, FarEasTone and Taiwan Mobile all performed well withaverage latencies below 40 milliseconds in our tests, though FarEasTone took theaward for best reaction time. In the 3G category, Taiwan Mobile easily bested its threecompetitors. Its measured average HSPA latency of 54.7ms is a score we'reaccustomed to seeing on LTE networks.

Out with the old, in with the new

Our results may show that FarEasTone has a distinct performance advantage in 4G,but the mobile landscape in Taiwan is changing quickly. Taiwanese regulator NCC hasannounced plans to free up 150 MHz of new 4G spectrum, either by repurposing old3G airwaves or identifying new mobile broadband frequencies. New airwaves meanmore capacity and more options for operators to upgrade their networks with LTE-Advanced.

We'll soon see one generation of technology disappear to make room for the nextgeneration of mobility. GT isn't the only one shutting down its legacy networks. All ofTaiwan's operators have confirmed they'll sunset their 2G networks by the end ofAugust, clearing those airwaves for more sophisticated mobile technologies. Severaloperators already are looking ahead to 5G networks of the future. Chunghwa,FarEasTone and Taiwan Mobile have inked deals with global infrastructure vendors for5G development. It will take several years before the first 5G signal connects to aconsumer device in Taiwan, but in the interim 4G technologies will continue theirsteady progress.

Our Methodology

OpenSignal data is collected from consumersmartphones and recorded under conditions ofnormal usage. As opposed to drive-test data, whichattempts to simulate what a user might experienceby using the same devices to measure networkperformance in a small number of locations, we takeour measurements from millions of smartphonesowned by regular people who have downloadedOpenSignal’s apps.

Those measurements are taken wherever usershappen to be, whether indoors or out, in a city or inthe countryside, representing a mobile data servicethe way users experience it. For more information onhow we collect and analyze our data see ourmethodology page.

For this particular report, 286,874,402 datapointswere collected from 13,580 users during the period:Feb 28 - May 30, 2017.

All data has been collected from users of theOpenSignal mobile app for Android or iOS.

For every metric we've calculated statisticalconfidence intervals and plotted them on all of thegraphs. When confidence intervals overlap for acertain metric, our measured results are too close todeclare a winner in a particular category. In thosecases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason,some metrics have multiple operator winners.

©2017 OpenSignal, Inc. All rights reserved.

OpenSignal, Inc retains ownership of this report including all intellectual propertyrights, data, content, graphs & analysis. Reports produced by OpenSignal, Incmay not be quoted, reproduced, distributed, published for any commercialpurpose (including use in advertisements or other promotional content) withoutprior written consent.

The trusted global standard formobile experience.Providing real-world, competitive insights from over 20 millionusers of the OpenSignal app.

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