Telstra may be Australia’s largest 5G network but Optus fares better for overall network availability and Vodafone leads for 5G availability, according to Open Signal’s latest review of the country’s three mobile networks.
Analyst firm Open Signal tested the three networks in city and regional locations for three months from January to March this year.
The report, released on Friday, found that while Telstra had the most consistent user experience overall with 5G availability, Optus performed best nationally in terms of network availability with a 3G connection or more.
It’s a narrow victory, however, with Optus’s network available 99.4% of the time, compared with 99.3% for Vodafone and 99.2% for Telstra.
Optus had the best availability in New South Wales and was a joint winner of availability in five other regions, followed by Telstra and Vodafone.
Vodafone’s 5G network was available more of the time than its rivals, at 30.8%, compared with Telstra’s 19.2% and Optus’s 12.1%.
Optus reported the fasted average download speeds at 229.6 megabits a second (Mbps), 6.8% faster than Telstra at 215Mbps, and more than double Vodafone at 106.8Mbps.
Telstra won overall download speed experience at 59.6Mbps, compared with 55.7Mbps on Optus and 47.8Mbps on Vodafone.
The report also examined how the networks fared for video, gaming and voice apps, finding Optus users had the best overall experience.
The report comes as Vodafone’s parent company, TPG, and Telstra appealed a ruling from the competition regulator in December last year that prevented the two companies from sharing network infrastructure.
The deal would have resulted in TPG decommissioning about 700 Vodafone mobile sites in order to use 3,700 Telstra mobile sites in a network sharing agreement across 4G and 5G. It would have increased the reach of Vodafone’s mobile network in regional and remote parts of Australia – increasing coverage from 96% to 98.8% of the Australian population.
Telstra would have also gained access to 169 TPG sites.
The Telstra CEO, Vicki Brady, said in February that the ACCC’s decision was disappointing, and the company expected the competition tribunal’s ruling on the deal to be released in June.
She said the company had yet to consider any alternatives.
“We are appealing it, so we will wait and see where that decision lands in June,” Brady said.
“I think innovative sharing arrangements, as we’ve demonstrated under the [TPG] deal, will be important in the future of delivering great mobile services into the country.”
Optus opposed the deal, arguing it was detrimental to network competition in regional Australia.
