Three UK and EE Come Top in 2013 Mobile Broadband Road Trip Test

Mobile operator’s Three UK and EE have come top in the latest annual study of roaming Mobile Broadband performance. Overall Three UK delivered the highest peak internet download speed of 8.66Mbps (Megabits per second), while EE delivered the best average speed of 3.43Mbps. But once again it’s bad news for Vodafone.

The study, which was conducted by Broadband Genie and PC Advisor magazine, tested most of the markets Mobile Network Operators (MNO) while travelling on a four hour train journey all the way from London’s Kings Cross (England) to Waverley Bridge station in the centre of Edinburgh (Scotland).

A variety of different Smartphones, Tablets and USB Modems (Dongles) were used by the team and the key results are as follows.

Best Average Download Speeds
1. EE 3.43Mbps
2. Three UK 1.87Mbps
3. T-Mobile 1.31Mbps
4. O2 1.2Mbps
5. Samba 0.97Mbps
6. Globalgig 0.76Mbps
7. Virgin Media (Mobile) 0.26Mbps
8. Vodafone 0.19Mbps

Best Average Upload Speeds
1. EE 1.79Mbps
2. Three UK 0.94Mbps
3. Globalgig 0.84Mbps
4. Samba 0.74Mbps
5. Virgin Media (Mobile) 0.51Mbps
6. O2 0.41Mbps
7. Vodafone 0.23Mbps

Curiously there was no upload speed score for T-Mobile but they were given a ‘Recommended’ status due to being a good all-round performer. However the news was clearly less rosy for Vodafone, which has recently seen a succession of different studies showing them as being home to bottom dwelling service speeds.

Naturally Vodafone has recently said that such surveys do not represent a proper test of their network or service quality, although it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore the trend. Only a few short years ago Vodafone were close to the top.