For the second time, IMTEST, the largest consumer test magazine in Germany, in cooperation with zafaco GmbH, a technological and market leader for broadband network testing in Germany, and supported by Keysight Technologies, has published results for a major drive test campaign through Germany. The scope of the testing was to find Germany's best mobile network by benchmarking the three major mobile operators – Telekom, Vodafone, and Telefónica (O2). The main outcome of the tests this year was that the overall results for all of the tested operators were good and the network coverage in Germany is getting better with less and less areas where mobile connections do not work. According to the tests, Telecom offers the best mobile network in Germany, with a "very good" score (1.4), followed by Telefónica (O2) in second place with a "good" score (1.8). Vodafone was third with an overall rating of 2.1.
The extensive investigation by zafaco for the IMTEST mobile network test is based on a unique combination of different data collection methods and reflects both the network performance and the user experience. This includes drive test campaign, the assessment of voice quality between mobile and fixed line connections as well as between different mobile networks. Furthermore, the evaluation of user-based data through "crowdsourcing". This data relates to download and upload data transfer rates, as well as the relationship of these measured transfer rates to the network availability of the mobile network operators.
The drive test measurements were performed using Keysight's portable network benchmarking solution, Nemo Backpack Pro with Nemo Outdoor software, and Application Testing Automation (ATA) method for Microsoft Teams.
"Our collaboration with Keysight powered our testing campaign with innovative measurement methods, such as testing Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp, and the latest technologies such as 5G Standalone (5G SA) and Voice over New Radio (VoNR)" said Christoph Sudhues, Founder and Managing Director, zafaco GmbH. "We were especially impressed by the excellent support by the Keysight Nemo team before and during the test phase. We are already looking forward to future projects."
During the five-week campaign, test engineers drove 10,000 kilometers through thirty major cities, country roads, and motorways, covering an area with population of around fifteen million people and collecting data from approximately 160,000 test connections. The measurements covered the regions of Hamburg, Berlin, Thuringia, Braunschweig, and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the results published by IMTEST are available for each area individually as well as combined results for the whole of Germany.
"We were pleased to partner with the IMTEST and zafaco experts in supporting this extensive testing campaign utilizing the latest capabilities of our solutions, such as Application Testing Automation (ATA)" said Jagadeesh Dantuluri, General Manager, Network Wireless Solutions and Private Networks at Keysight Technologies. "ATA is a unique method for testing the real end-user experience of mobile applications, such as Microsoft Teams, and this was an excellent opportunity to deploy it in providing reliable and comprehensive results for the German consumers about network quality."
In recent years, the use of mobile applications globally to access digital content, engage on social media platforms as well as participate as a player in online games has grown significantly. IMTEST and zafaco extended the testing scope to cover this important trend of how consumers use mobile networks and tested the quality of service of social media applications for the first time this year.
Read the original article (in German)
More details about the testing procedure (in German)