The latest Opensignal report has revealed the 5G mobile customer experience offered by AU, SoftBank, Rakuten Mobile and NTT docomo in Japan.
au wins Japan’s Reliability Experience award, scoring 939 out of 1000, beating NTT docomo by 12 points. This metric assesses users’ ability to reliably connect and perform basic tasks on the network.
au overtakes SoftBank, the previous winner, in Quality. au’s score improvement of 2.2 percentage points allowed it to win in this category, which evaluates network quality based on download/upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, and time to first byte.
Rakuten Mobile has secured both 5G download and upload speed awards, with the highest 5G download speed at 176.5Mbps, while au maintains leadership in overall download speed at 54.7Mbps.
Au is offering 5G download speed of 155.1Mbps. Au’s 5G upload speed is 17.5Mbps.
NTT Docomo is offering 5G download speed of 147.3Mbps. NTT Docomo’s 5G upload speed is 9.7Mbps.
SoftBank is offering 5G download speed of 137.6Mbps. SoftBank’s 5G upload speed is 19.4Mbps.
au outpaces competitors, winning seven experiential awards outright and sharing one (5G Video Experience with SoftBank). These awards include Video Experience, Live Video Experience, and 5G Voice App Experience, marking au’s significant improvement in user experience.
NTT docomo leads in coverage, winning both the overall Coverage Experience and 5G Coverage Experience awards. This win highlights its expansive network reach across populated regions in Japan.
au leads in regional performance, with 20 outright and 18 shared wins in overall network experience. It also performs strongly in Live Video, Games, and Voice App experiences. In the 5G category, au and Rakuten Mobile each secure 11 outright wins, while au also earns 18 shared wins, Robert Wyrzykowski, Principal Analyst at Opensignal, said.
Success of Rakuten
Rakuten Mobile has aggressively expanded its 5G infrastructure, focusing on improving connectivity and speed. By prioritizing the latest network technologies and optimizing its 5G architecture, Rakuten Mobile has managed to deliver faster data transmission rates.
Rakuten Mobile’s advanced, cloud-native 5G network architecture allows for more efficient data processing and reduced latency. This approach uses virtualized and open technology, which helps optimize resources and improve network responsiveness, directly benefiting download speeds.
Baburajan Kizhakedath
