Etisalat Retains UAE’s Best Mobile Network Title in Opensignal H1 2026 Report

Etisalat  has retained its position as the UAE’s Best Mobile Network for the fourth consecutive reporting period, winning all 13 awards in Opensignal’s H1 2026 UAE Mobile Network Experience Awards.

The recognition covers all four award pillars assessed by Opensignal: network performance, quality of experience, coverage and application experience. The results are based on real-world mobile network measurements collected between January 1 and June 29, 2026.

Etisalat secured all four speed awards, outperforming rival operator du in both overall and 5G download and upload speeds. Its overall download speeds were 45% faster than du’s, while upload speeds were 19% higher. On 5G, the operator recorded a 26% lead in download speeds and a 20% advantage in upload speeds.

The operator also recorded its strongest competitive leads in quality of experience. Etisalat outperformed du by 14.8 percentage points in overall Consistent Quality and by more than 11 percentage points in the 5G category. It also maintained a clear lead across both Reliability metrics.

In coverage, etisalat led du by 1.5 points in overall coverage and 1.0 point in 5G coverage. Its 5G users also spent 3.8 percentage points more time connected to 5G, equivalent to approximately 16% more time than du users. Opensignal noted that this advantage contributes to etisalat’s wider overall speed lead.

Etisalat retained both application experience awards, recording a Video Experience score of 61.3 compared with du’s 60.0. In Games Experience, it scored 73.5, ahead of du’s 71.8.

Commenting on the results, Shawn Heidel, President of Network Experience at Opensignal, congratulated etisalat on its continued performance, attributing its fourth consecutive win to sustained investment, engineering excellence and a consistent focus on customer experience.