In the Alpine Republic we find largely familiar circumstances this year – this applies to the general conditions as well as to the ranking of the providers.
Traditionally, the Austrian providers still achieve slightly higher scores in our mobile network test than their counterparts in Germany, but fall somewhat behind the operators from Switzerland, which is particularly strong. This is also valid this year – although the gaps are no longer quite as pronounced and also changes in our methodology somewhat relativise comparisons with previous year‘s results.
The roll-out of 5G in the Alpine Republic has made good progress in recent months (see box on page 82). And despite high upgrade costs, the level of mobile tariffs in Austria remains lower than in Germany. But Austrian customers still have to pay close attention to how their providers deal with the non-EU neighbouring country of Switzerland when it comes to billing. In the roaming conditions of most providers, it is equated with countries such as the USA – whereas post-Brexit Great Britain is usually still treated as a member of the EU zone.
VOICE
A generally familiar picture also can be seen in the results of our voice measurements. The connection quality tested in all three networks via
VoLTE (Voice over LTE) is at a high level. In the larger cities, Magenta and A1 have a neck-and-neck race. In this scenario, however, provider Three falls significantly behind the competitors in both the drivetests and the walktests – and, interestingly, also behind its results from the previous year. Lower success rates and longer call set-up times are to blame for this. In the smaller towns, too, there is a clear gap between Magenta and A1 at the top and chaser Three.
Magenta‘s call set-up times of less than one second in 90 per cent of cases are particularly striking – the provider even keeps up this impressive level in the difficult railway scenario. The success rates of our test calls via Magenta and A1 are also convincing: In larger and smaller cities as well as on connecting roads, they range over 99 per cent for these two providers, in trains still over 96 per cent. Here, Three shows potential for improvement, as in the other scenarios. When it comes to conducting phone calls on trains, the three Austrian providers are more or less at the previous year‘s level – improvements, as we could observe with some providers in the neighbouring countries, cannot be seen in the Alpine Republic in this scenario.
DATA
In the data measurements, Magenta and A1 are also tough competitors. In some disciplines, such as the walktests conducted in large cities or the drive tests in small towns, the two competitors score equally in the category ratings. On the connecting roads, A1 is somewhat ahead.
Three follows at a slight distance in all scenarios, whereby the Hutchison brand was able to catch up further with the other two providers, especially in the large cities. It should also be noted that the third-placed Austrian provider achieved results in the data tests in small towns, on connecting roads and also on trains that would have easily been enough for the category win in the northern neighbouring country of Germany. At this point, the disparity in the three-country comparison becomes particularly clear.
Magenta and A1 owe their good performance in the urban scenarios to the further rollout of 4CA (4 Carrier Aggregation: the combination of up to four frequency bands) in their LTE networks and not least to their progress in 5G expansion (see box further down this page)
Overall, Magenta comes out on top in the data discipline with the highest data rates observed in all examined scenarios – in absolute terms, the values are best in the large cities. The small gap of Three in comparison to the other two candidates is again explained by the potential for improvement, for example, in the uplink data rates, which the umlaut testers found in the course of their walktests.
On the connecting roads, A1 scores with slightly higher average upload data rates than the two competitors. For the experienced quality of service while driving, the success rates are also particularly important – here, all three providers are on a high level, with Magenta and A1 being even slightly better in most test cases and taking turns regarding the lead.
The results of the Youtube tests are pleasing overall, although in this sub-discipline, Three sometimes also manages to come out ahead among the three.
Data connectivity on trains
When it comes to mobile internet use on trains, the Austrian providers rank ahead of their German colleagues again this year – but the potential for improvement compared to the other test scenarios is clear for both voice and data. Even compared to last year, not much has really changed here.
5G
The new mobile communications standard is a regular part of our data assessment. Nevertheless, it is worth taking a look at how the network operators perform in this promising sub-discipline. That‘s why we look at the samples from the drivetests and walktests that already have 5G coverage.
As an example, we look at the results of the seven-second download tests from the data discipline. The high proportion seen here in the larger cities proves that all three Austrian providers have made significant progress in 5G roll-out in the more densely populated locations.
A1, however, ranges much higher than its competitors here, but also in the small towns as well as on the connecting roads. Even in the trains, more than 50 per cent of the samples recorded by this provider already have 5G coverage. On connecting roads, the figure is already 40 per cent. On the other hand, Magenta performs best in terms of data rates: Where this provider offers “pure 5G“, downloads are usually much faster. The testers only registered samples with 5G DSS in relevant quantities in the Magenta network – but the data rates achieved with this type of coverage are lower. Where Drei can already offer 5G, the data rates offered are absolutely competitive.
