The website Open Signal has posted interesting numbers regarding the state of LTE around the world. Kuwait for example turns out has the third highest time spent on LTE networks but also has the second slowest LTE internet connection compared to everybody else. Check out the full report [Here]
Thanks Haneyl
34 replies on “The State of LTE in Kuwait”
I think the report should be taken with a pinch of salt. When I used LTE in Kuwait, the speed was anything but slow, usually averaging at around 15 mbps.
I’ve never gotten anything close to 15mbps. I’m on LTE now with viva and just ran a speed test to a local server and got 3.12 mbps.
Figures, I used Zain’s LTE, it peaked at around 21 mbps occasionally, and that was based on a speedtest that I ran back in December.
Nice try, Zain rep.
Seriously though, I use VIVA as well and can confirm that I have yet to see my net speed reach 15mbps. If that’s the speed you get from Zain, then looks like its time to change my ISP.
I’m not an advocate of any network in Kuwait hahaha, it might just be an isolated case. Try talking to a CSR from Viva.
You’ll actually get different LTE speeds in different areas too, so you could both be right
I think I’m going to have to agree with aaa. I just tested my Zain connection randomly in Surra and got 27.52 down and 11.23 up.
I agree with Rashid. My Zain gives me great speeds and I’m in a concert villa in Salwa. Its much better than my Gulfnet!
my Zain LTE has reached 35 Mbps on multiple occasions (was so shocked I screen-capped the results) but mostly falls somewhere between 15-20. It’s so fast, I’ve been using my phone’s LTE for dling vids from itunes and even streaming my apple tv (which was pretty much impossible b4)!
If I’m not mistaken, Zain has a bandwidth limit for 4G LTE. So higher consumption begets a slower connection once the limit is fully consumed 🙁
I have zain as well. Speedtests are not always reflective of the actual performance. Your results sound suspiciously good, sorry. Never got that kinda service from Zain.
The usage of Kuwait is so high because our landlines are garbage and LTE, even if it’s slow, is faster than them
exactly what i was going to comment
The reason our LTE usage in Kuwait is so high is because our landlines are absolute garbage and slower than the LTE connections usually. I hate when iTunes asks me to connect to Wifi because it just means I’ll start downloading slower.
+1
It’s so sad but yeah I hate connecting to home wifi because of this.
Can’t wait for the new company that will open soon 😉
Why? They all use the same government provided network and just lease parts of it. If anything it’ll just mean everyone gets worse service.
Need to take this report with a pinch of salt. I am using Oredoo (which doesn’t even feature in these statistics) and is significantly faster than these numbers show.
The country shouldn’t be judged on the service that has a reputation for being a long way away from being “Zain”, despite the name.
I’ve been using Zain 4G for… I think three years now. In the mornings the download speed can get up to 3 mb/s which equals 24 mbps. At night it rarely goes above 500 kb/s, but there are frequent weeks-days in a row where the speed can be absolute trash.
I would happily switch to a land line, but the sad truth is that for five years I keep hearing “fiber is coming to your area soon” and I’m not interested in going back to 1-1.5mbps.
Even fiber is crap. I have a 12mbps connection and I have issues loading web pages and youtube frequently.
When I was living in Hateen I used to get in excess of 65 Mbps on my connection with Quality Net, sometimes it was around 80 Mbps.
Unfortunately I had to move to Egaila and now have just 1.5 mbps, I loved my Nitro package connection from Quality Net!
Has the damaged undersea cable been fixed yet?
lolz
I’ve tried LTE in europe and asia and i confirm its Faster than Zain but not Viva and Ooredoo
Just did a test. 9.37 on Zain.
Very interesting article.
Thanks Mark.
Boom.
Noor!
Cooking oil?
This only shows those networks on which people have installed the opensignal app; so if a network is missing or under-represented that just means it was not significant enough to be included in the stats.
You can download the app on the page linked in the post.
Anecdotal evidence shows that location matters the most; timing is the second factor.
Your location (which area) and more importantly, if you are in an office or apartment complex, how high you are up makes a huge difference.
4G signals do not travel at great height. After about the 6th floor you are looking at degraded signals; and anything above the 9th floor forget it; unless are you are in real close proximity to the cell site or you have a booster installed in your building. They look like large smoke detectors.
The device matters as well. iPhones are given priority over the network. I confirmed this by standing at the same spot, with the same provider and compared the test against the same server at the same time.
iPhone won by a mile (21+ vs. 2+ on the other device).
From a friend who works in this business, if you happen to be in an area where the speed is excellent, simply keep pinging any server on the Internet and the connection will remain on that “cell” and you should not face bandwidth problems.
Finally, the biggest problem slowing down actual browsing is the crappy DNS server found in most network devices and from the ISP (if you are on a phone). Switch to an open DNS server like Google’s (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) for a better browsing experience.
I use OpenDNS at home but didn’t realize it was that easy to use over LTE without messing everything up
Can you please explain a bit how this ping server thing works to remain on the good connection tower?
There are couple of things driving the usage which skews this compared to other countries. EVERY person is on the phone once their eyes open till they sleep. Whether they are driving, having a dinner with friends and family, walking. The second thing I’ve noticed is a lot of the expat labourers use the phones for connecting with their loved ones back home which is otherwise impossible for them on their <70-80KD salaries and .200+ call rates. I'm sure there are other factors as well but that's by $2c
Iam wondering which is the best for speed area couvarage and online gaming. Oreedoo/Zain/Viva? because i want a good stable speed that is fast enough for me to have a good overall online experience. so what do u guys recommend me to buy? and why?