Vodafone Romania announced on Wednesday that, following tests run by an independent audit company of Germany, it had been awarded the Best in Test award certifying that it is the best voice and data network in Romania.
The Mobile Benchmark test was run by the P3 Communications company in Arad, Bacau, Braila, Brasov, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Constanta, Craiova, Galati, Iasi, Oradea, Pitesti, Ploiesti, Sibiu and Timisoara, as well as on the roads connecting those cities, between 6 November and 2 December 2014. During the press conference where the results were published, the Vodafone representatives noted that P3 had not been remunerated for the tests that were independently performed. The German company had not previously disclosed the locations where it was going to run the network testing including 14,000 telephone calls and 400 GB of data traffic.
During the tests, P3 used a Samsung Galaxy S4 for all major networks in Romania.
According to P3 tests, the average download speed in the Vodafone network was 43 Mbps in the analyzed period and the competitors offered a download speed if 41 Mbps and 28 Mbps. For upload, the average speed in the Vodafone network was 34 Mbps and 27 Mbps and 8 Mbps.
In 90 per cent of the tests the average download speed was higher than 26 Mbps for Vodafone and over 18 Mbps and 6 Mbps for the other operators. For upload, in 90 per cent of he cases the average speed was above 14 Mbps and, for competitors, in over 90 per cent of the cases the average upload speed was over 6 Mbps and even lower.
Whilst the P3 test places Vodafone in the first position in Romania, according to the Ookla service monitoring download and upload speeds by crowdsourcing Orange fills the first position among mobile networks. On that, Giovani Chiarelli (photo) , Vodafone Romania Technical Director, said ‘the Ookla tests can be influenced by testing win areas where the internet speed is very good’.
Andrea Rossini, Director Consumer Business Unit, Vodafone Romania, said that 57% of all smart phones sold in the network were 4G terminals and that, at the end of 2014, the sales of 4G smart phones were four times higher than in the same period of the previous year. At the end of 2014, Vodafone announced Supernet – 4G+ also launched by main competitor Orange. Vodafone Romania Consumer Business Unit Director Andreea Rossini says mobile traffic is up 60% and 4G traffic up four times after the introduction of the Supernet.
As for future projects, Giovanni Chiarelli stressed during the event that the 4G network would offer full coverage in 41 county capital cities and 18 resorts by the end of March 2015.
