Thailand Mobile Network Experience Report May 2021

Opensignal unveils Thailand Mobile Network Experience Report  May 2021 found that This time around, either AIS or TrueMove H win all our awards, as the latter has taken possession of DTAC’s sole award in the last report — Download Speed Experience. TrueMove H now holds both our speed awards, while AIS continues to hold both our awards for the extent of 4G networks — 4G Availability and 4G Coverage Experience.

The experiential awards remain less neatly split, with TrueMove H holding onto the Video Experience award and AIS maintaining its grip on our Games Experience and Voice App Experience awards. It’s interesting to note that despite TrueMove H’s lead on speed and Video Experience, it is in third place on Games Experience and Voice App Experience —indicating why it is important to look at different aspects of the mobile network experience.

In this report, we've analyzed the mobile network experience for all three of Thailand's national operators — AIS, DTAC and TrueMove H — over a period of 90 days beginning January 1 and ending March 31, 2021, to see how they fared. Alongside the national analysis, we've also measured our users' experience in seven regions of the country to see how they match up. We have used 5G measurements in addition to those from previous generations of mobile network technology when determining the overall scores for each award.

Opensignal Awards Table

TrueMove H’s download speeds have risen by more than 60%

TrueMove H is the outright winner of our Download Speed Experience award, having beaten the previous winner — DTAC — by a margin of 5.3 Mbps (52.6%). This feat is all the more impressive due to the fact that in our last report the average download speeds seen by our TrueMove H users were 0.8 Mbps slower than those observed by their DTAC counterparts. These changes were driven by a remarkable 5.9 Mbps (62.6%) increase in TrueMove H’s Download Speed Experience score and a 0.2 Mbps drop in DTAC’s.

TrueMove H extends its lead on Upload Speed Experience

TrueMove H is once again the winner of our Upload Speed Experience award, having held it ever since we introduced this measure of the mobile experience in our May 2019 report. This time, its lead over second-placed AIS has more than doubled, rising from 1.3 Mbps to 3.1 Mbps. This is because TrueMove H’s score rose by 1.2 Mbps (17.9%) while AIS’s fell by 0.6 Mbps (11.2%). While the average upload speeds seen by our DTAC users rose by 0.1 Mbps (3.1%), they were around 2.4 times slower than those seen by their counterparts on TrueMove H’s network and 1.4 Mbps below those seen by our AIS users.

Our Thai users’ 4G Availability rises back above 90%

AIS remains the outright winner of the 4G Availability award and its winning streak extends all the way back to our November 2018 report. It is closing in on the 95% mark as its score has risen by 1.2 percentage points to 94.7%. Its rivals haven’t been idle in this regard, with DTAC and TrueMove H’s scores rising by 2.2 and 0.8 percentage points, respectively, to stand at 92.5% and 90.7%. As a result of these improvements, our Thai users spent more than 90% of their time connected to 4G regardless of their choice of national operator. In addition, AIS also retains its hold on the 4G Coverage Experience award and has hit the nine points out of 10 mark, thanks to an increase of 0.2 points in its score. However, its lead has dropped from 0.6 points to 0.5 points as second-placed TrueMove H’s score rose by 0.3 points.

The mobile experience in Bangkok Metropolis reflects national trends

In contrast to our previous report, in which AIS was the dominant operator in Bangkok Metropolis for all but one measure of the mobile experience (it tied with TrueMove H on Video Experience), this time round, TrueMove H is the outright winner of the regional awards for this region for Video Experience, Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience. This mirrors the operator’s successes at the national level. Similarly, AIS had the highest score in the region for Games Experience and Voice Experience, though it was a joint winner along with DTAC for 4G Availability, rather than winning outright (which it did at the national level). Our wider look at the mobile experience across seven regions also was mainly in line with our national awards table.

Regional Analysis:

Our regional analysis has mainly played along national lines with TrueMove H and AIS winning 21 and 18 regional awards outright out of a possible 42. However, DTAC was a joint winner alongside AIS for 4G Availability in three regions — North, West and Bangkok Metropolis — with AIS winning in the remaining regions outright. The proportion of time that our AIS users spent connected to 4G ranged from 96.2% in Bangkok Metropolis to 92% in the West. DTAC’s 4G Availability scores only dipped below the 90% mark in the Northeast and South regions, while TrueMove H’s scores were also below this level in the same regions, and also in the West (but only by around 0.2 percentage points). However, TrueMove H was in last place in all seven regions for 4G Availability.