Sweden Scrapes a Win Over England in World Cup Mobile Data Contest

According to tests undertaken in the UK and Sweden by Argogroup, the mobile data services testing company, if mobile data services were a World Cup event, British operators would be struggling to make it to the knock-out stage. Swedish operators edged their UK counterparts in the competition to provide the best mobile data services to subscribers, providing quicker SMS alerts than their UK counterparts for the game's goals. One of the UK's quintet took 12 minutes or more to inform consumers about each of the four scores. One Swedish operator, 3, also showed an uncharacteristic passion for the game: their SMS shrieked 'NEEEJ!' when England scored and 'JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!' when Sweden equalized. Its British sister simply offered the score.

All operators in Sweden and England delivered the right content and it arrived as it was meant to. Two of the three Swedish operators delivered SMS notification within 80 seconds of each of the goals being scored. The slowest operator still did it, on average, within a rapid 114 seconds. Three of the UK operators were competitive with the slowest Swedish operator (delivering their SMS within just a few seconds more at an average 121 seconds) with Vodafone's 'Footie on the Fone' service delivered with Sky Sports, outperforming all of the UK services. But goal updates from one operator took more than 15 minutes to arrive – meaning that anxious subscribers received news of both of the England goals several minutes after Sweden had equalized.

Inconsistent video performance
Some of the UK operators offer a video clips service. 3 UK delivered the clip fastest, but T-Mobile's clip showed the goal from several angles, although it took much longer to deliver, indicating a possible difference in strategy as far as video clips are concerned.

The tests are the third in a series conducted by Argogroup during every England game at the World Cup. For the first time, for the final Group B game between England and Sweden, Argogroup compared the performance of the three Swedish operators as well the five UK companies. Previous testing had measured just the UK operators' performance. The tests took place between 8.00pm and 10.00pm on 20 June using a variety of phones from different manufacturers and Argogroup's award winning Monitor Master product.

According to David Frodsham, Argogroup's CEO, all of the UK operators have smartened up their act as the World Cup has progressed. "The services are definitely improving in availability, content quality and delivery times," he said. "Getting news of goals within a couple of minutes is probably acceptable to most subscribers. And now operators' portals are making it easier for customers to navigate to the World Cup news they want."

"All three Swedish companies performed a little better than the British firms and were much closer to each other in terms of quality and performance. In the UK the operators are offering the service themselves, whereas in Sweden the operators are just pointing to 3rd party providers. This may be a reason for the difference."

The next test will be run during England's game in Stuttgart with Ecuador on Sunday, 25 June. Details of the previous World Cup tests undertaken by Argogroup, can be found on the company's website, www.argogroup.com.