Cambodia’s mobile operators are aggressively building out their 4G networks, but while LTE signals are readily accessible across much of the country, both 3G and 4G data rates are still extremely slow.

According to a report from OpenSignal, which crowdsources data from smartphones with its app, the country had an LTE availability score of 63.3 per cent during Q2 2017, putting it on par with Southeast Asian countries Indonesia and Malaysia, and well ahead of the Philippines.

Analysing more than 86 million measurements collected from 8,414 devices during the quarter, OpenSignal examined the 3G and 4G user experience of Cambodia’s three major mobile operators: Viettel’s Metfone, Smart Axiata and MobiTel’s Cellcard.

Cellcard and Smart had LTE availability scores of about 70 per cent, while Metfone’s was 56 per cent.

For 4G speeds, Cellcard was the clear winner with an average download speed of 19.71Mb/s, nearly twice as fast as number two Smart Axiata on 10.16Mb/s. Metfone’s mean 4G download score was 4.64Mb/s, a rate closer to typical global 3G connection speeds.

Growing capacity
While LTE networks are becoming more readily accessible in Cambodia, the services are still generally limited in capacity. As Cambodian operators add more capacity to their networks, 4G speeds will increase to match LTE’s growing reach, OpenSignal said in a statement.

The operators’ typical 3G speeds fell well below the global average of 4.4Mb/s. Cellcard, again, led the way with a rate of 2.09Mb/s, followed by Metfone on 1.9Mb/s, and Smart Axiata on 1.57Mb/s.

Average connection speed across all networks in Cambodia was 5.7Mb/s, which places the country among the slowest of 87 OpenSignal examined in a recent global report.

Smart Axiata, with a 30 per cent market share, is the country’s 4G leader with more than 700,000 LTE users at end-June, according to data from GSMA Intelligence. 4G subs accounted for 8.5 per cent of its 8.5 million mobile connections. Cellcard, which held a 15 per cent market share at end-June, had 145,000 4G users, accounting for about 3 per cent of its 4.3 million connections.

GSMA Intelligence didn’t have 4G data for Metfone, the overall market leader with a 50 per cent share of mobile connections. Its 3G users accounted for 33 per cent of its 14.2 million connections at end-June.