Hong Kong's mobile networks significantly underperform compared to the speed of smartphone users' Wi-Fi experience, bucking the global trend, according to new analysis from OpenSignal.
Analysis of the global state of the Wi-Fi compared to the mobile network experience across numerous countries worldwide found that Hong Kong's mobile networks deliver average speeds that are 38.6Mbps lower than that experienced over Wi-Fi.
Hong Kong's mobile users experience an average speed over Wi-Fi of neatly 55Mbps, compared to just 15Mbps for the mobile network.
In China by contrast, average Wi-Fi speeds were recorded at 23.9Mbps, compared to overall mobile download speeds of 13.8Mbps.
Of the Asia-Pacific countries studied, only Japan, South Korea and Singapore also recorded faster Wi-Fi compared to mobile speeds, and the difference between the two was a lot closer in each market.
South Korea recorded the fastest average mobile speeds of around 45Mbps, compared to 56Mbps for Wi-Fi, while Singapore had the fastest Wi-Fi speeds of 73Mbps, compared to around 39Mbps over Wi-Fi.
According to OpenSignal, telecoms operators in markets where there is little difference between mobile and Wi-Fi speeds are using fixed networks effectively to support their cellular networks, and experience greater mobile networks consumption as consumers in the market have little incentive to switch networks.
First published in Computerworld Hong Kong