Frog portfolio company Opensignal – the global standard for measuring mobile user experience in the wireless industry – have published their first analysis looking at how the lockdown in Italy due to the spread of COVID-19 has been impacting mobile network experience. This kind of analysis is industry-leading and will be valuable in assessing and planning for the impact of COVID-19 response measures.
Reporting on the period from February to the first two weeks of March, Opensignal has analysed the hourly 4G download speed from Italian smartphone users. In the past week, users have experienced a significant change, specifically from the week commencing Monday the 9th of March, following the Italian government’s restrictions imposed on the population in response to the coronavirus. In the second week of March, 4G download speeds dropped from 25mbps to below 20, which indicates a 25% decrease in speed. Opensignal did not observe any significant change in users’ download speeds in non-peak times, which suggests that the overall capacity of the mobile network has not collapsed but rather capacity is being tested by the influx of users.
Finally, Opensignal observed that Italian smartphone users’ time on Wifi has increased. Italian users are spending more time at home connecting to Wifi and fixed networks and yet are also using mobile networks more — for example for watching video and playing online mobile games — increasing the load on mobile networks and leading to a reduction in 4G speeds.
You can read the full report on Opensignal’s insightful analysis here.
