FLORIAN OLIVO-UNSPLASH

THE PHILIPPINES saw the biggest improvement in 5G games experience globally, buoyed by Globe Telecom, Inc., according to mobile analytics company Opensignal.

Globe users saw a 30.3% year-on-year improvement in 5G games experience — the highest in Group I of global telco operators surveyed for the Opensignal 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2023 released on Tuesday.

This was followed by Movistar in Chile with 26.7% and Free Mobile in France with 26.1%, Opensignal said.

The Philippines was recognized once across the key measures of the 5G experience examined by the study, which are 5G availability, 5G download speed, and 5G games experience.

“As it is a hugely different — and more difficult — undertaking to roll out 5G across a vast territory than across a small nation or city-state, we have split operators into two groups,” Opensignal said.

“Group I contains operators from markets with a land area of more than 200,000 square kilometers while Group II consists of operators whose home market is below this threshold,” it added. “This allows for more meaningful comparisons and better reflects the difficulties associated with deploying 5G across large swathes of lightly populated terrain.”

For the Philippines, Globe and Smart Communications, Inc. were part of Group I. The study covered 90 operators in Group I and 74 operators in Group II.

Opensignal noted the main challenge 5G operators face, which is taking advantage of 5G’s improvement of user experience to maximize their return on investment.

“This is best achieved by chief network officers targeting their next round of investment in the areas that create the most customer opportunity, while chief marketing and revenue officers focus their offensive tactics in the areas where their mobile experience is superior to their competitors,” it added. — M.H.L. Antivola