nPerf Name EE and Three UK as Fastest Mobile Broadband Networks for 2026

French internet connection benchmarking firm nPerf has this morning published the results from their annual 2026 crowdsourced study into UK mobile broadband (4G, 5G) performance. The results see both EE and Three UK being named as delivering the country’s “best Mobile Internet performances“.

The latest nPerf study (PDF) is based on masses of tests carried out – between January and December 2025 – exclusively by customers of the various mobile network operators, using tools on both nPerf’s website and via their dedicated mobile testing apps for Android and iOS. The results are said to reflect “users in real conditions” from across the United Kingdom, although they only include the major national operators with a test share above 5%.

However, there are caveats to this sort of data, such as the fact that it could be impacted by any limitations of the devices being used, which hampers the ability to adopt a common type of hardware in order to establish a solid baseline of performance. But those caveats are shared by all operators in the study.

Overall, EE and Three UK were both top of the pack and virtually neck and neck for performance. The United Kingdom’s mobile internet sector displays an average score of 78,222 nPoints. EE and Three UK share the leadership positions with 86,470 and 84,993 nPoints respectively, dominating across download speed (both exceeded 110Mbps in download speeds), upload speed, and latency.

By comparison, Vodafone scored 74,892 points, while O2 once again found itself at the bottom of yet another mobile performance study with a score of just 66,557 points. The full results can be found below, which includes a second set of results for 5G-only connections (Three UK pulls out in front on that one).

2026 nPerf UK Mobile Benchmark (All Connections)

2026 nPerf UK Mobile Benchmark (5G-only Connections)

One other thing to consider above is that Vodafone and Three UK began to merge their networks during the latter half of 2025. This is a slow multi-year process, but it may well start to impact the results for next year’s study.

“The UK mobile market demonstrates strong competition at the top, with both leaders delivering comprehensive performance and user experiences that benefit from high-speed connectivity across all key indicators“, states Sébastien de Rosbo, CEO of nPerf.