EE Come Top for UK 4G Network Availability and Speed in New Report

The latest H1 2017 report from RootMetrics has revealed the 4G mobile performance and availability of O2, Three UK, Vodafone and EE across England, Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland. Overall EE takes the crown for Mobile Broadband speed and coverage, while Three UK won for reliability and calls.

The report is based upon the results of approximately 646,230 test samples gathered via modern Android Smartphones, which were collected at various different times of the day and night while the RootMetrics team drove 21,562 miles across the United Kingdom (including visits to 628 indoor locations).

Apparently the testing covered roadways, big cities, small towns and rural areas, although sadly they don’t split the results out by rural and urban areas or clarify the split of collected sample sizes for each.

Scott Stonham, GM of Europe for RootMetrics, said:

“These latest results have really shaken things up and show the increasing competitiveness in the UK, particularly over the last six months. EE continues to lead the way, but Three and Vodafone are close behind. What is clear is that each operator showed strong performance in at least one particular country, while nobody was able to sweep the board at the four-nations level.

UK consumers have strong mobile options depending on how and where they use their devices most.”

Overall the 4G network from EE was found to have a UK wide availability of 90%, while Vodafone came next on 82%, O2 scored 81% and Three UK came last on just 67%. Sadly mobile reception in Wales remains the weakest of the four nations, while customers of Three UK appear to suffer the most from problems with availability.

Nation-by-nation 4G Availability

England – EE (91 percent), Vodafone (83 percent), O2 (82 percent), Three (69 percent)
Northern Ireland – EE (90 percent), O2 (83 percent), Vodafone (80 percent), Three (61 percent)
Scotland – EE (83 percent), O2 (80 percent), Vodafone (76 percent), Three (59 percent)
Wales – EE (79 percent), Vodafone (60 percent), O2 (60 percent), Three (54 percent)

After that the data for other aspects of service has been boiled down to a simple score of 0 to 100 (i.e. the higher the score, the better the performance), although we don’t seem to get a clear summary of the scores for each nation and instead RootMetrics merely offers a UK wide overview with some generalisations.

Awards by Operator & Nation

* EE claimed the top mobile performance award outright in England, as well as for Network Speed and Data Performance, which – due to its dense population – resulted in EE’s overall UK-wide win. The operator also claimed all Network Speed, Data, and Text Performance wins or shares across all four countries.

* Vodafone was named overall winner and most reliable network in Northern Ireland, as well as an outright claim for the Call Performance award.

* Three emerged as the top overall operator in Scotland and Wales, also claiming the Network Reliability crown for those countries and England.

* O2 delivered a good performance in Northern Ireland, securing a shared text award.

The full report can be read here.