Network test Austria: T-Mobile at the top

Traditionally, Austria's mobile networks are fast, well developed and inexpensive. Since 2018, all network operators have improved noticeably once again. This is confirmed by the network test conducted by CHIP together with the experts from NET CHECK.

An important reason for the changes: This year not only A1 Telekom Austria is offering telephony via the 4G mobile communications standard VoLTE. In the meantime T-Mobile Austria and Hutchison Drei Austria have made up for their shortfall and activated "Voice over LTE". The magenta giant has won a total of two places compared to the previous year and for the first time has moved past the competition to first place. A1 exchanges the gold medal for a silver medal. Hutchison Drei Austria slides into third place.

Good, better, network expansion Austria

For mobile surfing along the test track, the fast LTE radio technology is available in all networks to around 99 percent. T-Mobile received a school grade of 1.24. The network operator also achieved the best results in the two categories "Telephony" and "Mobile Internet". A1 misses its traditional first place by a whisker with an overall grade of 1.27. T-Mobile connects its customers' calls faster and also offers the best voice quality, while A1 shows small weaknesses in call setup. Hutchison Drei lands in third place. However, the rating of 1.4 shows that the subsidiary of the Chinese CK Hutchison Holdings is still in the same league as its competitors. Piquant: The last in the Austrian network test is on a par with the German network test winner Telekom.

For a long time A1 set the standards and had a structural advantage. Among other things, the technical upgrade to VoLTE at T-Mobile and Drei is now changing the long unchallenged pecking order of network operators for the first time.“

Surfen with highspeed

The performance gap between town and country is moderate for the providers in the Alpine Republic. Not only in the cities, but also on the connecting roads, all three networks show excellent performance. With fast 60 Mbit/s, T-Mobile is still positioned behind Three (67 Mbit/s) and Speed Champion A1 (over 78 Mbit/s) in Austria. By comparison: In Germany, Telekom performs best on the connecting roads - with 44 Mbit/s. In addition, the networks make virtually no mistakes: Retrieving YouTube live streams in FullHD almost always runs smoothly.

How CHIP tests

The test engineers from NET CHECK covered a total of more than 7,500 kilometres through Austria with special measuring vehicles and backpacks. Their journey took them from Lake Constance in the west to Burgenland in the east. They travelled more than 1,500 kilometres by long-distance train. The testers took a closer look at five major cities, ten medium-sized and 20 smaller towns and paid particular attention to the network quality at busy hotspots, including tourist attractions, airports, train stations and shopping centres. NET CHECK conducted the tests with 18 smartphones of the widely used Samsung Galaxy S8 model, controlled by automated measurement systems from the renowned test equipment manufacturer Rohde & Schwarz Mobile Network Testing.

Need for improvement at long-distance trains

There is potential for improvement in the connection in trains. A1 offers the best network here and is ahead in terms of telephony with a rate of 6.7 percent of aborted calls. T-Mobile comes in at 8.6 percent. Surfing does not work smoothly either. Even with A1, uploading and downloading a file and accessing a live stream from YouTube is only possible in 94 percent of all cases. That is over five percent less than in the cities. Overall, the CHIP network test certifies that all networks have a "good" result on the trains - at least one class better than in Germany. However, Switzerland's level remains unrivalled.