At Opensignal, we’re committed to providing a real-world, data-driven view of mobile network performance across the globe. The Global Network Excellence Index is designed to help policymakers, regulators, industry leaders and analysts understand which countries are best prepared to deliver reliable, high-quality mobile connectivity today – and in the future.
Mobile networks, devices and user behaviour are constantly evolving. So is our Index. We continuously refine our methodology based on customer feedback, advances in network technology, and changing real-world usage patterns, while preserving consistency and transparency over time.
In this article, we explain the methodology behind the Index, the metrics we use, and how we ensure meaningful comparisons between countries with very different market conditions.
What is the Global Network Excellence Index?
The Global Network Excellence Index is a country-level ranking that assesses how well mobile networks support modern digital life. It is based on billions of real-world measurements collected from smartphone users worldwide and provides an objective benchmark of mobile network performance across markets.
The Index evaluates countries on their ability to:
- provide access to modern mobile infrastructure,
- deliver a reliable, consistent user experience, and
- support future demand as data usage and advanced applications continue to grow.
Importantly, the Index is not static. As markets mature, 5G adoption scales, and device ecosystems change, we update the Index to ensure it continues to reflect how networks are actually experienced and compared in practice.
The three pillars of network excellence
Each country’s ranking is determined by its performance across three equally weighted pillars, chosen to balance access, reliability and capacity:
1) Time on 4G/5G (previously known as 4G/5G Availability)
This measures the proportion of time users are connected to modern mobile networks (4G or 5G). It reflects how accessible advanced mobile infrastructure is in everyday use and highlights gaps in coverage that can affect productivity, digital inclusion and economic development.
2) Excellent Consistent Quality (ECQ)
Excellent Consistent Quality evaluates how reliably networks support demanding everyday applications such as video streaming, video calls, gaming and mobile banking. Rather than focusing on peak performance, ECQ captures whether the experience is consistently “good enough” for users to complete common tasks without frustration.
ECQ is calculated using six key performance indicators (KPIs), each with thresholds aligned to real-world application requirements:
- Download throughput: ≥ 5 Mbps
- Upload throughput: ≥ 1.5 Mbps
- Latency: < 50 ms
- Jitter: < 12 ms
- Packet discard rate: < 1%
- Time to First Byte (TTFB): < 0.8 seconds
A Success Ratio is also applied to account for tests that fail due to connectivity issues, ensuring reliability is fully reflected.
3) Download Speed (previously split into 4G and 5G)
Download speed indicates a country’s network capacity and future readiness. Faster speeds generally reflect sufficient spectrum, dense infrastructure, modern radio technologies and robust backhaul – all essential for supporting growing data demand and next-generation services.
How the Speed pillar evolves with the market
As 5G becomes a meaningful part of everyday connectivity in more countries, we have evolved how speed is measured in the Index.
From the February 2026 update onward, the Index uses a single Download Speed measure, calculated as a device-level mean. This change reflects customer feedback and real-world market conditions, ensuring that:
- 5G performance is properly represented where it is widely used,
- countries are compared more fairly across different stages of technology adoption, and
- the speed pillar remains aligned with how users experience modern, multi-generation networks.
How the rankings are calculated
Each of the three pillars carries equal weight in the overall ranking. Countries are ranked within each pillar, and their positions are aggregated to produce the final Index ranking.
If two or more countries achieve the same score, they share the same rank and the next rank is skipped (for example, two countries tied at 10th place are followed by 12th).
This approach ensures clarity, transparency and consistency over time, even as the methodology evolves.
Device views and fair comparisons
One of the key challenges in global benchmarking is that device ecosystems vary widely between countries. To address this – and in response to direct customer feedback – the Index offers two device-based views:
All devices view
This view reflects the typical real-world experience across the full smartphone mix in a country.
High end devices (default view)
The default ranking is based on results from High and Premium smartphones, providing a more standardized comparison of underlying network quality by reducing distortion from hardware limitations. This dual-view approach allows readers to understand both:
- the everyday experience of users, and
- the intrinsic capability of mobile networks when assessed on a level playing field.
Market segmentation for meaningful benchmarking
Countries differ widely in geography, population distribution and economic capacity. To support fair and relevant comparisons, the Index segments markets using World Bank data:
1) Land area
- Large markets: > 200,000 km²
- Small markets: < 200,000 km²
2) Income level (GNI per capita)
- Low income
- Lower-middle income
- Upper-middle income
- High income
3) Region
- East Asia & Pacific
- Europe & Central Asia
- Latin America & Caribbean
- Middle East & North Africa
- North America
- South Asia
- Sub-Saharan Africa
These segmentations help policymakers and industry leaders benchmark performance against peers facing similar structural realities.
In addition to geographic and income-based segmentation, the Global Network Excellence Index also allows countries to be compared using commonly referenced economic and policy groupings. These groupings are widely used by governments, regulators and international organizations and help place mobile network performance in a broader economic and institutional context.
The Index supports benchmarking across the following groups:
- AU55 – African Union member states
- G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States
- G20 – Major advanced and emerging economies representing the bulk of global GDP
- GCC – Gulf Cooperation Council countries
- EU27 – Member states of the European Union
- OECD – Countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
These groupings make it easier for stakeholders to:
- compare performance against direct economic peers,
- assess how regulatory maturity and investment capacity translate into real-world mobile experience, and
- track progress within regional or policy-driven blocs over time.
Downloading the data
To support transparency and independent analysis, users can also download the underlying country-level data used in the Index.
The downloadable dataset enables policymakers, analysts and researchers to:
- conduct their own benchmarking and comparisons,
- track changes over time,
- integrate Index results into broader digital policy or infrastructure analysis.
This reflects Opensignal’s commitment to openness and to enabling evidence-based decision-making across the telecom ecosystem.
How we collect the data
Opensignal measures mobile experience using both user-initiated tests and regular, automated background tests performed at random intervals. This approach captures what users experience at typical moments in time, rather than during isolated speed tests.
Our methodology aligns with best practices recognised by regulators and official bodies, including the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Note: China is excluded from the Index due to limitations in accurately measuring end-user experience caused by the Great Firewall.
What’s next?
The Global Network Excellence Index is updated quarterly. As networks evolve, technologies mature and user expectations change, we will continue to refine the Index – guided by customer feedback, empirical evidence and market reality – while maintaining methodological transparency and comparability over time.
Explore the latest Index rankings here.
Want to discuss what these results mean for your market? Meet the Opensignal team at MWC.
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