RootMetrics – EE Remains the Best Mobile Network Operator for London

The latest H2 2017 study of 3G and 4G mobile network performance in London by RootMetrics has once again awarded the best operator crown to EE, although rivals from O2, Vodafone and Three UK are catching up and the latter did at least manage to beat EE for “Call Performance“.

The following results are based on data that was gathered during September 2017, which involved 12 million tests using a Samsung Galaxy S8 Smartphone and while travelling 2,349 miles around the city (including measuring performance at 99 indoor locations).

Naturally EE has a big advantage because they own more radio spectrum than any other operator, although rivals have been improving their 4G networks and thus the gap in some areas is closing.

Scott Stonham, GM for RootMetrics Europe, said:

“Consumers expect mobile operators to deliver fast data speeds and reliable performance, particularly in the world-class city of London. Although EE leads the way in terms of the number of awards won and in overall performance, all four mobile carriers deliver solid network reliability as well as good call and text performance in London. That means consumers have options based on how and where they use their mobile devices the most.”

As usual RootMetrics have boiled their data down to a simple score of 0 to 100 (i.e. the higher the score, the better the performance), although we’ve added the median Mobile Broadband download speed for each operator to the “Network Speed” category below. On this front the performance gap is much wider, stretching from a measly 9.4Mbps at O2 to 37.4Mbps on EE.

We also noted that EE’s median upload speed has increased from 13.1Mbps to 19.8Mbps since the last round of testing six months ago. Three UK’s median upload speed has also increased from 6.6Mbps to 11.0Mbps. Sadly RootMetrics have not provided the upload speeds for Vodafone and O2.

Network Reliability
1. EE – 97.4
2. Three UK – 96.7
3. O2 – 96.2
4. Vodafone – 95.8

Network Speed (Media Download Speed in Megabits)
1. EE – 94.9 (37.4Mbps)
2. Vodafone – 90.9 (15.8Mbps)
3. Three UK – 86.8 (12.8Mbps)
4. O2 – 80.8 (9.4Mbps)

Data Performance
1. EE – 97.6
2. Vodafone – 95.5
3. Three UK – 93.4
4. O2 – 91.2

Call Performance
1. Three UK – 94.9
2. EE – 94.4
3. O2 – 93.2
4. Vodafone – 91.6

Text Performance
1. EE – 98.8
2. O2 – 98.1
3. Vodafone – 98.0
4. Three UK – 97.2