Mobile operators in Myanmar began rolling out 4G services in 2016, but the average LTE download speeds in the country have already topped 28Mb/s, more than 11Mb/s faster than the global average, the latest data from OpenSignal showed.

In its first State of Mobile Networks report for the country, the mobile analytics company said the country’s three major mobile players managed to build strong LTE networks, with the average download speeds at around the same level: 29.2Mb/s for Telenor Myanmar and 28.1Mb/s for both MPT and Ooredoo Myanmar.

The average speed puts the country at a similar level as Romania, which ranked 20th in terms of mean 4G speeds in OpenSignal’s State of LTE report released in February (based on measurements taken during Q4 2017) with a rate of 28.03Mb/s.

In terms of 4G availability, users on all three Myanmar networks were typically able to find an LTE signal more than 68 per cent of the time, comprised of 72.1 per cent at Telenor, 71.2 per cent at Ooredoo and 68.1 at MPT.

In the country’s largest city, Yangon, both MPT and Telenor were able to supply an LTE connection to users more than 81 per cent of the time – some 10 percentage points higher than their national scores.

OpenSignal noted the availability measure is not a reflection of geographic coverage. Instead, it indicates how often OpenSignal users can connect to LTE on each operator’s network.

The company based its statistics on 80.7 million measurements gathered from 9,085 test devices in the country.

Above average
Although the country’s 4G networks are relatively new, OpenSignal said operators are performing well beyond their regional peers in LTE speed and already achieved 4G availability levels similar to several neighbouring countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia.

Telenor was the clear leader in 3G download speeds, with an average of 7.28Mb/s compared with 5.66Mb/s for MPT and Ooredoo.

Viettel-backed MyTel and Amara Communications’ weren’t included in the report because they only launched service in March.

Ooredoo was the first to launch 4G services in Myanmar in May 2016.

Data from GSMA Intelligence covering Q1 showed Ooredoo with 6.6 million 4G connections, or 87 per cent of its total, compared with 1.45 million for Telenor and nearly 800,000 for MPT, which is the market leader in terms of total mobile connections.