Mobile networks: Salt, Sunrise UPC and Swisscom on the grill. Image: DALL-E3.Swisscom products
After 483 measurements taken during a major tour in Switzerland, Swisscom posted the best download, upload and latency speeds on its mobile network. Salt and Sunrise UPC seem very close with an advantage for the Renens operator, which was the surprise of this measurement campaign!
As for Swisscom, true to form, the results are clear. The historic operator achieved an average download speed of over 187.6 Mbits/sec and an upload speed of over 32.1 Mbits/sec, for a latency of around 17.8 milliseconds. Almost a triumph.
Very good results overall
Behind, both Salt and Sunrise UPC did not disgrace themselves, even if the download values, in particular, are down. The Renens operator in the hands of Xavier Niel can boast a download speed of 104.6 Mbits/sec and 30.6 in upload for a latency (the delay before an action on the internet begins) of 19.6 milliseconds.
On the Sunrise UPC side, the American operator in the hands of Liberty Global does significantly less in downloading with 90.4 Mbits/sec for an upload speed of 31 Mbits/sec and a relatively high latency of 27.1 milliseconds.
Test carried out at the end of December
The various test measurements were carried out mainly on the train dentist database with some values taken outside or inside. This probe was carried out at the end of December between Lausanne and Locarno via Centovalli, then between Locarno and Lausanne via Lucerne using the old Gotthard route.Swisscom products
In terms of technology, Swisscom was able to offer 5G 152 times, 4G seven times and 3G twice. Behind this, we see that Sunrise UPC delivered 5G 151 times, 4G eight times and 3G twice. Finally, Salt, the last to embark on the 5G adventure, only made this technology available 132 times, 4G 22 times and 3G seven times.
Variable maximum values
When it comes to maximum values, Swisscom and Sunrise UPC are leading the way. The former can claim peaks of 1059 and 138 Mbits/sec, while Sunrise UPC reached 658/118 Mbits/sec. Finally, Salt, whose measurements are more homogeneous, remained at 290/100 Mbits/sec.
If we look more closely at these results, we can see that in terms of downloading, the standard deviations (a figure that indicates how much the values in a data set deviate from the average) are 81 at Salt, 134 at Sunrise UPC and 167 Mbits/sec at Swisscom. In terms of uploading, Salt only displays 20 Mbits/sec, while Sunrise UPC and Swisscom achieve a standard deviation of 28 Mbits/sec.
Even more detailed analysis
But we can go even further in the Swisscom wins our hugely popular in the us analysis. At Swisscom, the medians (50% of the values above and below this figure) for downloads and uploads reach 141/32 Mbits/sec, 82/28 Mbits/sec at Salt and 43/22 at Sunrise UPC. At this stage, we realize that Xavier Niel’s brand seems to be well positioned in 2nd place in this test…
My comment? Even though Swisscom prevails in list of us mobile phone numbers databases all categories, the user experience observed between the three networks was relatively similar for surfing the Internet. Furthermore, not all operators were sometimes able to offer a network worthy of the name: network holes still exist.