A mobile network research company Open Signal released the results of their latest research, "Cellular Network Experience Report July 2019" for Indonesia. In it, Open Signal describes the internet speed of five Indonesian cellular operators, they are Telkomsel, Indosat Ooredoo, XL Axiata, Smartfren, and Hutchinson Tri (3). From the report, Telkomsel emerged as the operator with the highest download and upload speeds nationally.
The average download speed in Telkomsel network reaches 9.8 Mbps, faster around 2.4 Mbps from XL which occupies the second position. To upload, the average speed achieved by Telkomsel is 3.7 Mbps, competing with XL which recorded 3.4 Mbps. The third, fourth, and fifth consecutive order is occupied by Tri (5.2 Mbps download / 3.2 Mbps upload), Indosat (4.8 Mbps download / 2.5 Mbps upload), and Smartfren (4.5 Mbps download / 1.2 Mbps upload).
Open Signal research is conducted in 16 major cities in Indonesia, including Jakarta, Bekasi, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Makassar, Medan, Palembang, Bandar Lampung, Pekanbaru, Semarang, Surabaya, Denpasar, and Batam. Data collection for the "July 2019 Cellular Network Experience Report" involves 3.3 million devices in the period 1 February to 1 May 2019.
Telkomsel is the operator with the highest score for four of the five measurement parameters tested, those are download speed, upload speed, latency, and video experience. The government-owned telecommunication company is only inferior to Smartfren in the affairs of 4G network availability.
Since 2017, Smartfren has turned off the CDMA network, so that it now only operates the 4G LTE network. Even so, Open Signal notes that Telkomsel's upload speed has decreased by 1 Mbps in the past 6 months. While upload speeds of Indosat, Smartfren, and XL have increased by at least 0.5 Mbps in the same time period. While the download speed of Smartfren was down by 1.8 Mbps. In fact, last year, this operator won the download test.