State of Mobile Networks: Mexico (April 2016) Mexico's mobile market is rapidly changing, and not everyone is changing by choice. Long dominant Telcel faces new regulations forcing owner América Móvil to find ways to shrink rather than grow. Meanwhile a new competitive threat has emerged in the form of AT&T. Drawing on 43 million measurements collected by 29,000 OpenSignal users, we took a closer look at the new competitive mobile landscape in Mexico, seeing how its three national operators compare. Report Facts 42,824,503 28,563 Dec 1, Mexico Measurements Test Devices 2015 - Feb Report 29, 2016 Location Sample Period Highlights AT&T's 4G investment is paying dividends Telcel wins out on availability When U.S. mega-operator AT&T took over Iusacell and Nextel Mexico's wireless giant Telcel won OpenSignal's award for best LTE last year, it promised to invest heavily in their combined availability. Its 4G customers were able to see an LTE signal 64.7% of networks. We definitely saw the results of that investment the time in our testing period. Telcel also had the most responsive 4G between December and February. AT&T Mexico matched its network, landing the award for lowest LTE latency. larger rivals in 4G speed and, thanks to its robust 3G infrastructure, lead in overall mobile data speed. A three-way tie for 4G speed Globally Mexico's LTE speeds lag The race for the 4G speed crown was so close we wound up Mexico falls squarely in the middle of the global operator pack when it measuring a statistical tie between Telcel, Movistar and AT&T, all comes to 4G availability, but its operators' 4G speeds are well short of of which averaged LTE download speeds between 9.3 and 10.2 the global download average of 13.5 Mbps. Mbps. AT&T took the prize for 3G speed with an average download connection of 2.8 Mbps. Awards Table Download Speed: 4G Download Speed: 3G Download Speed: OverallLatency: 4G Latency: 3G Availability: 4G AT&T Movistar Telcel Test your network and contribute to our reports App Store Google Play Enjoyed our report? All our analysis is based on real measurements collected by millions of mobile network users. No simulations, no approximations: just real-world experience. Performance by Metric Download Speed: 4G This metric shows the average download speed for each AT&T operator on LTE connections as measured by OpenSignal users. Movistar Telcel 0 Mbps 3 Mbps 6 Mbps 9 Mbps 12 Mbps 15 Mbps Download Speed: 3G This metric shows the average download speed for each AT&T operator on 3G connections as measured by OpenSignal users. Movistar Telcel 0 Mbps 1 Mbps 2 Mbps 3 Mbps 4 Mbps 5 Mbps Download Speed: Overall This metric shows the average download speed experienced by OpenSignal users across all of an operator's 3G and 4G AT&T networks. Overall speed doesn't just factor in 3G and LTE speeds, but also the availability of each network technology. Operators with lower LTE availability tend to have lower overall Movistar speeds because their customers spend more time connected to slower 3G networks. Telcel 0 Mbps 1 Mbps 2 Mbps 3 Mbps 4 Mbps 5 Mbps Latency: 4G This metric shows the average latency for each operator on LTE AT&T connections as measured by OpenSignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network. Movistar Telcel 0 ms 23 ms 46 ms 69 ms 92 ms 135 ms Latency: 3G This metric shows the average latency for each operator on 3G AT&T connections as measured by OpenSignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network. Movistar Telcel 0 ms 40 ms 80 ms 120 ms 160 ms 200 ms 240 ms Availability: 4G This metric shows the proportion of time OpenSignal users have AT&T an LTE connection available to them on each operator’s network. It's a measure of how often users can access a 4G network rather than a measure of geographic or population coverage. Movistar Telcel 0 % 12 % 24 % 36 % 48 % 70 % Analysis It's been a tumultuous year for Mexico's mobile industry. The country's two smallest national operators got swallowed up by telecom giant AT&T as part of its plan to create the first pan-North American network across the U.S-Mexico border. Our Methodology Meanwhile, Mexico's own telecom behemoth América Móvil has begun shrinking its mobile operations in an attempt to put Telcel on the right side of Mexico's new OpenSignal measures the real-world experience of competition regulations. It's in this climate that OpenSignal is releasing its first State consumers on mobile networks as they go about their daily lives. We collect 2 billion individual of Mobile Networks report for Mexico. measurements every day from tens of millions of smartphones worldwide. While Telcel is still the largest and most dominant operator in Mexico (it serves 70% of all mobile subscribers), AT&T's entrance into the country — and the sizable Our measurements are collected at all hours of the investments accompanying it — are hard to ignore. AT&T Mexico launched its first day, every day of the year, under conditions of LTE service in October, three years behind Movistar and Telcel, yet it managed to normal usage, including inside buildings and bring 44 million people (one third of Mexico's population) under its new 4G umbrella outdoors, in cities and the countryside, and everywhere in between. By analyzing on-device by the end of 2015. AT&T's LTE download speeds are now on par with its two rivals at measurements recorded in the places where around 10 Mbps. In fact, all three operators shared the fastest 4G network award subscribers actually live, work and travel, we report during our test period as their results were close enough to produce a statistical tie. on mobile network service the way users truly experience it. AT&T, however, won the ribbon for fastest 3G network handily, averaging download speeds of 2.8 Mbps, compared to Movistar's 2 Mbps and Telcel's 1.9 Mbps. Because We continually adapt our methodology to best represent the changing experience of consumers on of those superior HSPA+ connections, AT&T also took the award for fastest overall mobile networks and, therefore, comparisons of the speed, which measures the average speed all of an operator's users experience results to past reports should be considered across both its 3G and 4G networks. Telcel came in second at 3.8 Mbps because of indicative only. For more information on how we its strong LTE availability (its customers connected to faster 4G networks more often), collect and analyze our data, see our methodology while a combination of slower 3G and less LTE availability landed Movistar in the last page. slot for overall speed. For this particular report, 42,824,503 datapoints were collected from 28,563 users during the period: Telcel's 4G wings spread far Dec 1, 2015 - Feb 29, 2016. Mexico's biggest operator did assert itself when it came to other 4G milestones. For every metric we've calculated statistical Telcel won OpenSignal's top awards for LTE availability and LTE latency, meaning its confidence intervals and plotted them on all of the 4G customers had access to an LTE signal more often and their data connections graphs. When confidence intervals overlap for a were typically more responsive. certain metric, our measured results are too close to declare a winner in a particular category. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, OpenSignal's availability metric (*) measures the proportion of time a subscriber can some metrics have multiple operator winners. see a signal on a particular network. In Telcel's case, its 4G users were able to connect to its LTE network 64.7% of the time during our three-month test period. AT&T wasn't far behind, though, with an availability of 62.2%, while Movistar again brought up the rear with a score of 56.2%. Our final measurement, latency, tracks the reaction of time of a network. Lower latency means web pages begin loading faster and less delay between responses in real-time communications apps like video chat. Telcel had the lowest (best) latency for 4G at 62 milliseconds, while AT&T had the lowest 3G latency at 138ms. Taking the next LTE steps Mexico's three mobile operators may face close 4G competition from one another, but globally the country is falling behind when it comes to technology. Mexico's average LTE speed is more than 3 Mbps behind the worldwide average of 13.5 Mbps, measured in our last State of LTE report. Operators in many other countries are building their second and even third LTE networks in new frequency bands to boost capacity and using new LTE-Advanced technologies to amplify speeds, but Mexico is falling behind the curve. It's not alone, however. Its neighbor to the north, the U.S., is also losing its technology edge as are many of 4G's early movers like Japan and Germany. That situation could change in the near term. Both Telcel and AT&T recently won new 4G licenses, which both operators could use to bolster their LTE capacity and speeds.