EE Delivers the Fastest Mobile Broadband Speeds in London for H2 2014
RootMetrics has released its latest study of Mobile Broadband (3G and 4G) performance across the city of London (England) for the 2nd half of 2014, which found that EE remains the faster mobile network operator with median download speeds of 23.15Mbps (up from 17.8Mbps in H1 2014 and 13.6Mbps in 2013). Meanwhile Three UK is the slowest.
As usual there are some caveats to the RootMetrics data, such as the fact that they don’t separate the performance of 3G and 4G networks in order to give a more balanced perspective. Likewise EE has the more mature 4G platform and, much like Vodafone, is also testing the latest LTE-Advanced with Carrier Aggregation technology in the city.
By comparison Three UK’s deployment of 4G is much further behind the others and they’re also the only major operator to offer “all-you-can-eat” (unlimited) data usage on several tariffs, although Tethering is now capped (i.e. less coverage and more congestion = worse performance).
It’s worth comparing these results with the same study, which has been conducted in London twice since 2013. Take note that the 2013 sample was also before most of the new 4G networks came online from Three UK, O2 and Vodafone.
Average Mobile Speeds in London (H1 2014)
1. EE (Download: 17.8Mbps Upload: 9.3Mbps)
2. Vodafone (Download: 10.1Mbps Upload: 3.8Mbps)
3. O2 (Download: 9.6Mbps Upload: 3.2Mbps)
4. Three UK (Download: 6.5Mbps Upload: 2Mbps)Average Mobile Speeds in London (2013)
1. EE (Download: 13.6Mbps Upload:8.4Mbps)
2. Three UK (Download: 5.5Mbps Upload: 1.8Mbps)
3. Vodafone (Download: 4.8Mbps Upload: 1.4Mbps)
4. O2 (Download: 3.2Mbps Upload: 1.2Mbps)
So far the 4G upgrade appears to have roughly doubled the median performance of most operators.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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EE 4G is rubbish in Shropshire coverage. No signal or 1 bar as for data allowance (it gone empty pretty fast) don’t bother with EE
3 4G is much faster than EE where I live and the mast are both in the same location.
All depends where you are, doesn’t it? Here where I live in suburban north-west London, much as I detest them as a company, I have to admit that EE 4G performs excellently for broadband – so much so that I’ve ditched the landline and now just use mobile – and none of the others come anywhere near them.
My sister in Staffordshire, however, finds that 3 are the only company worth using in her area.
It’s a case of “suck it and see”, and neither my experience nor hers are really relevant to anyone living elsewhere!
It’s superfast fibre-optic broadband, don’t you know 😉
It is very much about where you live.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3984068347.png
Add another couple of meg in each direction that’s shaved off by the VPN..
I think we’ve had work done here today to increase the downstream bandwidth available, though sadly, I’ve lost upstream, though I can work with it.
[img]http://www.speedtest.net/result/3985451807.png[/img]
I can’t even begin to describe how utterly farcical this makes VDSL’s “Next Generation Access” look.
OK, the IMG tag doesn’t work. Should have known that. I blame three glasses of red wine.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3985451807.png
As posts already confirm, the best operator all depends on where we individually live and spend most of our time.
Although EEs coverage does seem pretty good on the whole, their customer service royally sucks, and my recent dealings with them on behalf of others (in stores, online and by phone) have only reinforced this long held view. EE offers 4G in my home town, but I’m currently using Three on 3G and have no issues. EE I stay away from.
EE have customer service? When did they introduce that? 😉 I missed it!
^ a position with which I fully empathise.
EE does not have customer service.
The offer is not “finished” yet.
Let’s see who EE end up with, as their parents admit they’re not in the UK long term. It might even be BT, to make everyone happy. Meantime I find EE great when they work but the number of outages is astonishing, and ensure that 3 are my preference, simply because I place reliability over speed. It’s even claimed that Three’s parent have expressed an interest in buying EE, which might make the rest happy, I suppose. Will Voda, Sky and Virgin just enjoy being relegated to the sidelines?