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O2 UK Delivers Worst Level of Satisfaction for Mobile Data Speed

Monday, Jun 18th, 2018 (1:42 pm) - Score 3,230

A new online RootMetrics survey of 1000 mobile customers has found that EE and Three UK have the highest levels of satisfaction with Mobile Broadband speeds (57% and 58% respectively), while O2 is bottom. Overall 79% would be willing to pay “marginally” more for something faster and more reliable (like 5G).

The mobile analytics firm noted that O2 ranked the worst (51%) for satisfaction with mobile speed and Vodafone sat just above them on 55%. Perhaps unsurprisingly O2’s customers were also found to be the most inclined (17%) to pay £10 or more for a better service (O2 is said to have consistently ranked 4th in RootMetrics wider performance testing).

However, the survey revealed that price is currently seen to be of primary importance when choosing a carrier, with two-thirds (63%) of UK consumers describing cost as the defining factor in their decision. Reliability came in a not so distant second (53%) amongst consumers who recognised its importance in the selection process.

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Kevin Hasley, Head of Product at RootMetrics, said:

5G will flush everything out and become a ubiquitous technology for connectivity in metro areas – no more Wi-Fi. At the moment operators in the UK are involved in a bit of a cat and mouse game with each other and government about who will invest first in the infrastructure. Clearly mobile operators need to plan their capital expenditure carefully, but 5G will be a key battleground to winning subscribers in the near future and there is first mover advantage here.

People say they would pay more for better connectivity and that option is 100 percent available to them at the time of renewal, but many then make the decision on price alone. It is a false economy and people end up biting their nose to spite their face. In most areas of life we make decisions based on what we think is value for money, not just purely price motivated ones. Many among us have a tendency to be penny wise and pound foolish.”

Respondents were also presented with a number of scenarios relating to poor mobile performance and asked where they would place the blame. A common trend picked up by the report was in every scenario, except two, customers were more likely to make the carrier responsible for the fault.

The above included scenarios such as calls dropping, texts not being delivered, delays in posting a photo to social media and noticeable drops in video streaming quality. Meanwhile one scenario where consumers were less likely to blame mobile operators was calls dropping in rural locations.

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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12 Responses

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  1. Avatar photo Mike says:

    Perhaps has something to do with Telefonica wanting to offload them?

  2. Avatar photo Wujek Pawel says:

    Yet another sh*t worth study/metric. “1,000 mobile customers” where?
    In Cambs, outside the Cambridge city center Three is a pure sh*t, while Vodafone is second best after EE.

  3. Avatar photo Jonny says:

    Three is absolutely shocking in central London. Full signal strength and zero data throughput, to the extent that 4G voice also struggles.

    I’m also not that open to the idea of “pay a little more and get 5G” – 4G and 3G before it was meant to solve the same issues, but as long as carriers don’t seem to care about congestion within each cell or on the backhaul then the technology doesn’t really make a huge difference.

    1. Avatar photo Wujek Pawel says:

      4G or 5G is much better if it comes to network capacity. The problem here is poor uplink based on wireless backhaul (155Mbit/s)

  4. Avatar photo occasionally factual says:

    Well RootMetrics didn’t ask my household who all would have said O2/GiffGaff are the best where we live. We’ve all migrated in the past year from 3 or EE as we’d like the phone to be usable in our house and local area.
    Yet another waste of time survey which bears no relation to the real world. Just like the Government’s inflation figures.

    1. Avatar photo un4h731x0rp3r0m says:

      They would had got the same response from me as they would of had from you. For me its pointless having the best speed if half the area you live in refuses to connect to the network.

      I like your household ditched EE about a year ago and am glad i did.

      Where i live on O2 i can get a signal in every room in the house, which is impressive as a couple of spots are almost complete dead spots. With O2 sure it intermittently drops to old 2G when i walk into the kitchen but at least i can have a clear phone call without getting cut off, or more annoying the person the other end sounding like the have a bad stutter. Which is what happens on EE and Three (Yes even when EE is on 2G or me even forcing the handset to 2G only it would still lose signal).

      Likewise Vodafone in my area are OK, it has the odd issue sending a text when in my kitchen phantom zone but other than that its not bad. When it comes to my mobile phone im happy to sacrifice a Mb here and there in terms of speed if it means i can still use the thing when i want or need to. With O2 it just works, with EE and Three you i would be lucky if it worked.

  5. Avatar photo simon says:

    Now you know how you poor giffgaff punters feel. like this but 10 times worse!

    1. Avatar photo Onephat says:

      Ive never had an issue with GiffGaff. Speed tests its always well above 30mb/s. GG has been much better since the heavy users left for Three/Virgin etc. I frequently go above the limit where the 384 kbs limit kicks in but even then it always works well for browsing, WhatsApp, Emails etc. If i need to do anything tasty then i have my home broadband connection for that

  6. Avatar photo TheFacts says:

    Link to the survey please.

    1. Mark-Jackson Mark Jackson says:

      No link, it was an official press release from RootMetrics.

    2. Avatar photo TheFacts says:

      Link to full press release?

  7. Avatar photo Michael V says:

    My family members are with Tescomobile & always connect to WiFi as O2’s 3G network speeds are just poor. Especially when visiting where I live. The most in my village is 2G EDGE, with maybe 1 bar of 3G outside from the next town over. And I live just outside Cardiff, like 5mins in the car to the bridge into the city. But no I’m ‘rural’so I’ve been told. Hilarious… Vodafone have put up a 20metre cell site in the centre of the village on the main rd, they’re the only ones really making the effort.

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