Serious questions have been raised about the quality of research from UK Company Opensignal who earlier this week was spruiking a real-world 5G experience study of the Australian market bragging about the performance of the Telstra 5G service.
Suspicious ChannelNews questioned the research as it appeared to be questionable at best.
Opensignal claimed that when they assessed the average speeds our 5G users observed when on a 5G connection, Telstra was the clear winner.
With a score of 231.8 Mbps, it beat Optus by an impressive 61.9 Mbps (36.4%).
They then went on to claim that Optus and Telstra are statistically tied on 5G availability with scores below 9%.
Bragging they said, “This is an impressive achievement for Optus, given that its commercial 5G launch took place in early November 2019, roughly five and a half months after Telstra’s”.
They then moved on to download speeds claiming that Telstra won their Download Speed Experience – 5G Users award, with a score of 52.5 Mbps, which has beaten Optus’ score of 46.7 Mbps by 5.8 Mbps (12.3%).
The research Company claimed that a key factor in Telstra’s lead for this measure of the mobile network experience is the high 4G speeds our users have seen while using its network.
In Opensignal’s Mobile Network Experience Report back in April, Telstra users observed 4G speeds that were on average at least 6.4 Mbps (14.6%) faster than that observed by their counterparts on Optus or Vodafone.
The Company claimed that Opensignal has analysed the real-world 5G experience of our users across mobile operators in Australia, the U.S., and South Korea.
ChannelNews contacted the research Company to ask the following questions relating to Australia.
Where was the testing done (Suburbs/States)?
What 5G phones were used.
How many users did you survey and when was the survey done?
Opensignal came back claiming that their research was done “Everywhere 5G is live in Australia” with “No limit to specific locations”.
They claimed that several kinds of 5G handsets/brands/models reflecting the range of devices in use by consumers were tested.
They claimed that they saw over 150 5G smartphone models from 18 handset makers.
They then referred us to the below report
https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2020/08/australia/mobile-network-experience-5g which they claim was conducted between May 16 to August 14, 2020.
Their answers leaving more questions than answer.
For example, several tests by ChannelNews some metres from Telstra 5G towers have resulted in poor speeds some below 100Mbps.
Australia only has limited 5G handsets on sales they include models from Samsung, LG, Oppo and Motorola Xiaomi, Vivo and Huawei according to Telstra and JB Hi Fi.
Apple, Nokia, TCL as well as several other leading smartphone brands have not launched 5G devices in Australia yet.
In addition, 5G towers have only been built out in specific locations.
A test of Telstra 5G in Surfers Paradise, Sydney, Port Macquarie, Newcastle, and Melbourne by ChannelNews failed to achieve the average 238.1Mbps that Opensource claim they achieved.
The fastest Telstra 5G speeds we achieved was 280Mbps in Surfers Paradise and that was 200 metres away from a Telstra Tower.
