DACH - Download and upload speeds

Chapter 1 Key findings	Chapter 4 Latency
Chapter 2 Consistent quality	Chapter 5 Spectrum and technology usage
Chapter 3 Download and upload speeds	Chapter 6 Coverage

The difference between Switzerland and Germany might be relatively small for excellent consistent quality, but the gulf is much wider when looking at download speeds. Swiss mobile subscribers saw an average download speed of 27.6 Mbps, significantly faster than next-placed Austria, and double the average download speed of Germany. All three nations saw average download speeds well in excess of even the excellent consistent quality thresholds -- hence the more limited difference in consistent quality -- but Switzerland’s download performance is impressive nonetheless.

Just as for download speeds, Swiss operators lead the competition by a healthy margin when it comes to upload speeds. The average for all three Swiss operators came to 11.5 Mbps, compared to 8.8 Mbps in Austria, and 7.3 Mbps. Although this proved to be another win for Swiss operators, the gap to Austria and Germany was less pronounced than it is for download speeds.

It’s also worth noting that although Switzerland recorded the fastest average upload speed, even the 7.3 Mbps that German operators averaged was nearly four times higher than the 2 Mbps upload necessary to exceed Tutela’s excellent consistent quality standard. In other words, upload speed is not the limiting factor for network performance in any of the countries in the region.

Switzerland

Within Switzerland, there’s a clear winner on download speeds. Swisscom saw an average of 33.1 Mbps across 4G and 3G, more than 13 Mbps faster than its next-closest competitor. Previous analysis by Tutela and Rewheel has shown that Swiss operators consistently have the fastest average download speeds of any country in Europe.

Much of the speed is attributable to Switzerland’s unique approach to mobile infrastructure: strict limits on EMF exposure in Switzerland cause Swiss operators to have a lower total signal power than operators in other countries. To offset this somewhat, Swiss operators (particularly Swisscom) have deployed multiple LTE bands per tower, and use carrier aggregation to increase performance.

Swisscom once again took first place over its competitors for average upload speed, but unlike download speed, the results are much closer. Swisscom’s average upload speed was just 0.6 Mbps ahead of second-place Sunrise, and the gap to third-place Salt was less than 2 Mbps.

Austria

3 has the best download speed among Austrian operators, with a small but significant lead of 1.3 Mbps over next-placed A1. 3’s impressive download performance is even more so when considering the volume of data traffic its network handles. A1’s speeds are also impressive given this number incorporates both rural and urban network deployments, and a higher proportion of A1’s users are in rural areas compared to the other operators.

Although none of the Austrian operators can challenge Swisscom’s exceptional 33 Mbps average download speed, it’s notable that all of Austria’s operators are close to the same 20 Mbps average download speed as Switzerland’s other operators, suggesting that Switzerland’s overall advantage in download speed is attributable to Swisscom’s download throughput performance.

A1 provided the fastest average upload speed to its subscribers, achieving a mean upload speed of 9.9 Mbps. 3 -- which is top for both download speed and consistent quality -- came in second at 8.8 Mbps, whilst T-Mobile retained its third-place finish with an average of 7.7 Mbps.

Germany

None of the German operators can challenge the download speeds recorded by operators in Austria or Switzerland; Telekom, Germany’s best-performing operator for download speed, would be in last place behind all operators in Austria or Switzerland.

Among German operators, Telekom has the best combined 4G and 3G download speeds, 0.9 Mbps in front of next-placed Vodafone. O2 recorded the lowest average download speed of any operator in the test, an average of 11.8 Mbps. However, it’s still notable that all three German operators still saw average download speeds well in excess of the requirements for excellent consistent quality.

Vodafone and Telekom tied for average upload speed, at 7.5 Mbps. O2 was just half a megabit behind, with an average upload of 7.0 Mbps. Unlike consistent quality and download speed, where German operators were significantly behind the network providers in Austria and Switzerland, the gap between German operators and the rest is much less pronounced for upload speed.