In our annual benchmark report for the Netherlands, we have evaluated 408,576 speed and latency tests, conducted on the smartphones of real-world users of national mobile operators within Common Coverage Areas, between May and October 2021.
The Netherlands telecoms industry has developed its mobile networks to be one of the highest quality in the world, and this has recently been highlighted in Tutela’s latest Global State of Mobile Experience report for 2021 by its fourth-highest Excellent Consistent Quality ranking out of the top 30 countries. T-Mobile also showed its prowess globally by having the second highest Excellent Consistent Quality, just behind TDC Denmark. Vodafone and KPN also placed in the top 10.
Despite the pandemic seeing many countries and operators halt or greatly slow down its plans on 5G implementation, the Netherlands has proven itself to be an early adopter of this new technology. By July 2020, all three operators had acquired a total of 26 separate licenses in a variety of spectrum bands available. The country also ended July 2021 with 15,719 new mobile antennas installations deployed, with 62% of the sites having 5G availability.
As more users adopt 5G, there is less need for operators to cater to those still relying on 3G services. However, KPN in particular has delayed the shutdown of this older technology by 3 months to March 31st 2022. For those who don’t upgrade from 3G, they can still use 2G for voice services. In June, T-Mobile Netherlands began to shutdown its GSM services with minimum effect on its customers, but it will free up spectrum that can be used for more 4G and 5G capacity.
In September, Deutsche Telekom and Tele2 agreed to sell T-Mobile Netherlands to Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus. Inmarsat, which is also owned by the same company that now owns T-Mobile, has recently challenged the government’s decision to change the national spectrum plan and reserve the 3.5 GHz band for mobile services. This, in return, has delayed one of the most important auctions planned for April 2022 which was touted to increase mobile data speeds.
Report statistics
Date range: 1 May 2021 - 31 October 2021
Download & response tests = 408,576
Total measurements = 23 million
Operators
KPN T-Mobile Vodafone
Report statistics
Key findings
T-Mobile provides best overall mobile experience
T-Mobile Netherlands is providing its mobile users the best mobile experience in the country, with the operator having the highest Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality. On a 5G network, the operator had the second highest Excellent and Core Consistent Quality, just behind Vodafone.
Vodafone has the largest 5G coverage
While looking at 5G, Vodafone had the highest coverage of all operators with a score of 89/100. T-Mobile demonstrated the greatest overall (3G,4G,5G combined) coverage across the country.
KPN a strong contender in all metrics, tied first for highest Video Experience score
While KPN may have placed third in the Consistent Quality metrics, the operator placed first-equal for highest Video Experience score along with Vodafone, and emerged as a strong second-place contender in the coverage scores: KPN had the second highest 4G/5G coverage in the country, as well as for total coverage and for 5G-only coverage.
Mobile experience awards
Discover the top performing operators for overall experience and 5G in our mobile experience results table.
The contents of this report and the awards shown above are copyright Tutela; organizations may republish the awards and results above for editorial purposes; non-commercial uses and on unsponsored social media posts. For all other uses, please contact awards@tutela.com.
Understanding this report
This report encompasses the following experience KPIs:
Excellent Consistent Quality- the percentage of the time that a network met the minimum recommended performance thresholds for HD video, group video conference calls and gaming
Core Consistent Quality- the percentage of the time that a network met the minimum recommended performance thresholds for lower performance applications including SD video, voice calls and web browsing
Coverage Score - the relative geographic coverage of an operator, compared with other operators, scored out of 1000 (please note that the score is not a representation of the percentage geographic coverage in a country)
Video experience - determined based on a range of video specific KPIs including stall rate, resolution and buffering time
5G Consistent Quality - how often Excellent Consistent Quality threshold was met while connected to a 5G network
5G Coverage - the relative geographic 5G network coverage of an operator, compared with other operators, scored out of 100 (please note that the score is not a representation of the percentage geographic coverage in a country)
To ensure a fair comparison between operator performance, Tutela limits the results used in our comparisons to those collected within Common Coverage Areas.
Learn more about our benchmarking methodologyhere.
Consistent Quality
Consistent Quality
In Common Coverage Areas across the Netherlands, T-Mobile had the highest Excellent Consistent Quality with 89.1% of connections good enough for demanding applications like 1080p video streaming, HD group video calling and real time mobile gaming. Vodafone was a strong contender to T-Mobile, with only 1% separating the two operators. In third place, KPN had an Excellent Consistent Quality of 87.2%.
For Core Consistent Quality, Tutela’s metric for when a mobile connection meets the requirements for use-cases like SD video streaming, social media sharing and web browsing, all three operators easily reached the 90% threshold, with T-Mobile ever so slightly out in front with a Core Consistent Quality of 94.0%. In second place, Vodafone had a Core Consistent Quality of 93.7%, followed closely by KPN at 92.7%.
In Tutela’s newest metric analyzing Consistent Quality on a 5G network, Vodafone had the highest Excellent Consistent Quality with 91.2%, while T-Mobile and KPN statistically tied for second place with an Excellent Consistent Quality over 87%.
For Core Consistent Quality on a 5G network, all three operators reached the 90% threshold and Vodafone was again out in front at 96.8%, while T-Mobile placed second with only 3.8% separating the two. KPN also easily kept up with its competitors with a Core Consistent Quality of 92.0%, 4.8% behind first place Vodafone, and only 1% difference between T-Mobile and KPN.
T-Mobile demonstrated the greatest relative coverage in the Netherlands, with a 4G/5G coverage score of 695 and a total coverage score of 699. With the difference between the two coverage scores being only 4 points, this shows that mobile users on the T-Mobile network are using more of the newer technologies than the old.
In second place, KPN had a 4G/5G coverage score of 682, only 13 points behind T-Mobile, and a total coverage score of 695, 4 points behind T-Mobile. There is a difference of only 13 points between the two coverage scores.
In third, Vodafone had a 4G/5G coverage score of 675, 20 points behind T-Mobile and only 7 points behind KPN. For total coverage, Vodafone had a total coverage score of 679, and the difference between the two coverage scores was the lowest amongst the other operators with only 4 points.
Looking solely at 5G coverage scores, very little separated the Dutch operators from each other with Vodafone narrowly out in front with a 5G coverage score of 89 out 100, followed by KPN at 87 and T-Mobile at 86.
With an increasing need for on-demand video services from mobile users, and in return a growing desire from operators to measure this experience users are having in real-time, Tutela has released its newest metric, Video Experience Scores, that gauge the quality of video experience subscribers are receiving.
All three operators in the Netherlands have incredibly close scores, with Vodafone and KPN statistically tying for first place and T-Mobile in second with a Video Experience score of 3.91.
The table below shows a breakdown of individual KPIs for each operator.
KPN
T-Mobile
Vodafone
Download median
36.6 Mbps +/- 0.14 Mbps
36.9 Mbps +/- 0.16 Mbps
48.4 Mbps +/- 0.23 Mbps
Download % above 5 Mbps
96.9%
97.2%
98.3%
Upload median
16.7 Mbps +/- 0.06 Mbps
13.8 Mbps +/- 0.12 Mbps
13.0 Mbps +/- 0.11 Mbps
Upload % above 1.5 Mbps
98.0%
98.3%
97.1%
Latency % below 50 ms
99.9%
99.9%
99.9%
Jitter % below 12 ms
99.1%
99.0%
99.0%
Packet discard % below 1%
97.9%
98.0%
97.9%
5G KPI performance
The table below shows a breakdown of individual KPIs for each operator for 5G only.
KPN
T-Mobile
Vodafone
Download median
48.3 Mbps +/- 0.57 Mbps
41.9 Mbps +/- 0.96 Mbps
57.8 Mbps +/- 1.28 Mbps
Download % above 5 Mbps
99.7%
99.3%
99.6%
Upload median
31.1 Mbps +/- 0.56 Mbps
17.6 Mbps +/- 0.12 Mbps
17.1 Mbps +/- 0.28 Mbps
Upload % above 1.5 Mbps
99.8%
99.6%
99.0%
Latency % below 50 ms
100%
99.9%
99.9%
Jitter % below 12 ms
99.5%
98.9%
99.3%
Packet discard % below 1%
93.0%
94.2%
94.7%
Discover more insights for the Netherlands
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