umlaut‘s network benchmarks are widely ­accepted as the de-facto industry standard and for being highly objective. The carefully designed methodology of our 2020 benchmark in Spain reflects umlaut‘s holistic approach to network bench­marking. Its benchmarks com­bine 
drivetests and walktests to execute detailed voice and data measurements ­under ­controlled circumstances with a ­sophisti­cated crowdsour­cing approach. This provides profound insights into the overall coverage of voice and data (with focus on 4G and 5G) services, real-­world User Down­load Speeds and the Quality of Broadband Service. The drivetests and walktests allow for evaluating the maximum of the networks‘ ­capabi­lities. Crowdsourcing reveils the ­service ­quality and ­performance ­actually experienced by real users. We have thoroughly weighted ­these components in order to give a realistic and ­authoritative assessment of the rated ­networks‘ true ­potential and performance.

Even in the time of the Corona pandemic, our analyses showed that the networks remained stable, though with somewhat altered customer
usage patterns. When conducting this year‘s benchmark, we have of course carefully adapted the logistics to ensure maximum safety for our team members.

VODAFONE IS THE OVERALL WINNER,

MOVISTAR ACHIEVES HUGE SCORE IMPROVEMENT

Vodafone managed to continue its winning streak, scoring best in the umlaut connect Mobile Benchmark Spain for the sixth time in a row. The win is achieved by taking the lead in the Voice and Crowd-
sourcing categories. However, Movistar comes very close with a gap of only three points to Vodafone, showing a massive score improvement of 63 points compared to last year‘s result – mainly gained in the Voice category. In contrast, the other three contenders could not maintain their score levels from the previous year and have lost points. Also, Movistar is taking the lead in the Data category.

Orange falls back to the third position from last year‘s second rank and achieves the grade “good“ (2019: “very good“). Yoigo ranks last, falling back from 2019‘s “good“ to the grade “satisfactory“ this year. Still, Yoigo ranks ­second in the Crowdsourcing category, and together with Orange achieved the fastest crowdsourced user Download Data Rates.

Vodafone is the overall winner, with Movistar following at a ­close distance while impressively improving its score compared to our 2019 benchmark – achieving a plus of 63 points. 

Orange ranks in the midfield with a good result,
Yoigo achieves the overall grade “satisfactory“.

Movistar is the brand name the Spanish telecom­muni­­cations company ­Telefónica uses for the ­mobile network in its home market. Tele­fónica S.A. is one of the largest telco companies in the world. The ­operator is active in 17 countries with a total of 117,300 ­em­ployees and achieved worldwide ­revenues of over €48 ­billion in its fiscal year 2019.

While the company intro­duced the ­Movistar brand in Latin American countries in 2005, it has been active in Spain since the launch of GSM services back in 1995. Today, Movi­star is the largest mobile ­operator in Spain with approx. 19 million subscribers, which equates to a market share of over 30 per cent. 

It offers GSM service at 900 and 1800 MHz, UMTS/ 3G at 900 and 2100 MHz and LTE at 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz. Movistar is supporting 4G+ carrier aggregation with maximum speeds reaching up to 1 Gbps. The operator claims to provide 4G coverage of more than 96 per cent of the Spanish ­population and has recently switched on 5G on 3500 MHz alongside refarmed 1800 and 2100 MHz frequencies, claiming to provide 5G signals to 75 per cent of the Spanish population by the end of 2020.

Orange España is the brand name of France Telecom‘s mobile network in Spain. It has been operating under this name since 2006. Previously, the network was known as “Amena“ – this brand name lives on in Orange Spain‘s portfolio as a low-cost offer that is only available via the internet. Also, its network serves a number of mobile virtual network operators such as MasMovil, Carrefour Móvil and others.
With approx. 16 million mobile custo­mers, ­Orange is the second largest Spanish mobile operator with a ­market share of about 25 per cent. In the fiscal year 2019, Orange Spain reported a revenue of €5.3 ­billion which contributed approx. 13 per cent to the Orange Group‘s total revenue.

Orange Spain has deployed 2G networks at 900 and 1800 MHz, 3G networks at 900 and 2100 MHz and 4G at 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz. The operator claims that its 4G network ­reaches more than 97 per cent of the Spanish ­population. ­In 2020, Orange has launched 5G services on 3500 MHz in selected parts of the five cities Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Malaga and plans to expand it rapidly to other cities.

Vodafone España has been present on the Spanish mobile communications market since the ­year 2000. Then, the British Vodafone Group acquired ­Airtel ­Móviles which had operated in Spain ­since 1994. With approx. 
14 million subscribers, 
Vodafone has a share of about 23 per cent of the Spanish mobile market. This makes ­Vodafone the third largest operator in the country following at close distance behind its competitor Orange. In the fiscal year 2019, ­Vodafone Spain achieved revenues of €4.3 billion which ­contri­butes about 12 per cent to the whole ­Vodafone Group‘s finan­cial ­results. 

Vodafone‘s mobile network
in Spain offers GSM ­service at 900 and 1800 MHz, UMTS/3G at 900 and 2100 MHz and LTE at 800, 1800, 2100 and 2600 MHz. The Vodafone 4G network in Spain supports LTE 4 ­carrier aggregation (4CA or “4G+“) with maximum speeds of 1 Gbps. 

Vodafone ­España claims to offer the best LTE coverage in Spain, reaching approx. 98 per cent of the ­Spanish population. The operator was the first to launch 5G in Spain and now operates 5G network cells on 3500 MHz 
in 21 cities across the country.

Yoigo was the latest mobile operator to enter the Spanish market. Founded in 2000 under the name ­Xfera, the company started its actual operation in 2006, offering only a UMTS/3G network at 2100 MHz. At this time, the Swedish telecommunications ­company TeliaSonera ­acquired the majority of shares and ­rebranded the network as “Yoigo“. In June 2016, the former MVNO Másmóvil bought the ­company. For its fiscal year 2019, Másmóvil reported a record year with revenues of €1.7 billion and an increase of 1.4 million customers, resulting in now 7.4 million mobile subscribers or a market share of approx. 14 per cent. 

Yoigo had a national roaming agreement with ­Movistar until the end of 2016. Since January 2017, Yoigo customers freely roam in the 2G , 3G and 4G networks of Orange at ­locations without Yoigo coverage. Yoigo operates 3G at 2100 MHz as well as 4G at 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz. Thanks to its roaming agreements, the ­operator claims an LTE ­coverage of approx. 98 per cent of the population. As the only Spanish operator, Yoigo currently does not support VoLTE. In 2020, Másmóvil has started to deploy 5G in 15 cities. Its further 5G roadmap is based on a combination of own infrastructure and an agreement with Orange.

umlaut, based in Aachen, Germany, is a world leader in mobile network ­testing. The company was formerly known as P3 and changed its name 
in fall 2019 in the course of restructuring and ­refocusing its activities. umlaut has over 4,500 employees, distributed over about 50 locations all over the world­, and a ­turnover of ­more than 400 mil­lion Euros. 

umlaut is partnering with the ­inter­national telecommunications magazine connect, which has more than 25 years of editorial expertise
and is one of the leading test ­authorities in ­Europe for tele­communica­tions ­products and services. ­Together, umlaut and connect ­have been conducting the most impor­tant network benchmark test in Germany
for more than 15 years, ­extending it to other ­European countries ­since 2009. As the de-facto industry standard, umlaut‘s benchmarking methodology focuses on customer-perceived network quality.

Conducting the 2020 umlaut connect ­Mobile Benchmark Spain was certainly challenging in the light of the Corona pandemic. But the drivetest and walktest teams managed to realize all planned 
measurements during October 2020, covering a total of 11,540 km and approx. 25.4 per cent of the Spanish popula­tion. In addition, the score includes the results of extensive crowdsourcing ­analyses considering 24 weeks from May to October, 2020.