OpenSignal ranks Philippines lowest in mobile video experience

MANILA, Philippines — Mobile video experience in the Philippines has been ranked as the worst among 69 countries globally, a new report from research firm OpenSignal showed.

In OpenSignal’s first Global State of Mobile Video Report, the Philippines found itself at the bottom of countries measured for mobile video experience, which takes into account picture quality, video loading time and stall rate.

“Three countries, India, Iran and the Philippines, fell below the fair threshold into Poor territory (score of 0 to 40), where the typical consumer experience is characterized by frequent stalling during video playback and long loading times even for low-resolution video,” OpenSignal said.

Of the three, the Philippines posted the lowest score of 34.98, followed by Iran with 38.57 and India with 38.62.

No country achieved the highest video experience rating of excellent, while 11 of the 69 countries analyzed earned a very good rating, meaning mobile video loaded quickly and rarely stalled even at higher resolutions.

European countries outperformed the rest of the world in mobile video experience, with nine of the 11 countries that earned a very good rating coming from Europe.

Czech Republic topped the list with a score of 68.52, followed by Hungary, Norway, Belgium and United Arab Emirates, respectively.

An excellent rating, which requires a score of 75 to 100, would indicate that a country’s operators are able to consistently support high-resolution video with fast loading times and nearly non-existent stalling, across their networks.

As part of the report, OpenSignal also ranked the 69 countries in overall download speed and then plotted speed against video experience to see if there is a relationship between the might of a country’s mobile broadband networks and the quality of video customers see.

In terms of overall speed, which is the average mobile data connection a user experiences based on both the speeds and availability of a country’s 3G and 4G networks, the Philippines ranked third to the last, next to India and Pakistan.

OpenSignal, however, said that the fastest country does not necessarily offer the best mobile video quality.

“OpenSignal’s analysis shows that video experience and connection speed are linked in countries where speeds are relatively slow, but once a country passes the 15 Mbps threshold in average overall download speed, the raw power of connections has little bearing on streaming video quality,” the report said.