The latest “scientific” H1 2018 examination of 4G and 3G mobile network operator performance across the United Kingdom, which was conducted by RootMetrics and IHS Markit, has today seen EE and Three UK come top with a quality score of 96 and 93 out of 100 (respectively).
The report claims to have based its findings off over 593,008 tests, which were conducted using unmodified Samsung Galaxy S8 Smartphones purchased from carrier stores (these support the latest Gigabit LTE-Advanced 4G+ standard). As part of that the testing team also travelled more than 20,928 miles and visited 654 indoor locations to measure performance.
Sadly O2 (Telefonica UK) found themselves at the bottom of the pack again on a score of 86.6 out of 100 and that’s down on their H2 2017 score of 87.2 (here). By comparison their rivals all either stayed the same or reported a mild improvement.
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Overall Performance Scores for H1 2018 (H2 2017 Result)
1. EE – 96 (up from 93.7)
2. Three UK – 93 (up from 92)
3. Vodafone – 90.1 (unchanged from 90.1)
4. O2 – 86.6 (down from 87.2)
However on areas like network reliability the margins are even closer, with EE boasting a 97.6 mark and Three UK scoring 96.5. Similarly Vodafone is creeping closer to EE for network speed and data performance, while Three UK and O2 both lagged behind.
Scores for Other Categories
Network Reliability
1. EE 97.6
2. Three UK 96.5
3. Vodafone 92.2
4. O2 91.6Network Speed
1. EE 91.8
2. Vodafone 86.9
3. Three UK 82.9
4. O2 73.1Data Performance
1. EE 96
2. Vodafone 92.5
3. Three UK 92.1
4. O2 86.4Call Performance
1. EE 95.6
2. Three UK 93.8
3. Vodafone 86
4. O2 85.6Text Performance
1. EE 99.1
2. Three UK 96.8
3. Vodafone 96.6
4. O2 96.6
Equally EE may dominate overall network performance across the UK, but Vodafone is said to have scored higher in Northern Ireland and Three UK is competing with EE in Wales.
Kevin Hasley, RootMetrics Head and Exec Director at IHS Markit, said:
“EE’s reputation for delivering strong speed and performance is maintained in our testing; whilst Three’s consistent reliability places itself as another leading carrier across the UK.
The first movers in 5G are going to have an advantage as consumers will see a big step change in performance of their devices across critical functions like live streaming video. EE’s high performance in 4G testing can lead to a seamless service transition to 5G; however it will be a brand new playing field once the technology is live. 5G will give all networks an opportunity to be a leader in performance and service provision.
However, 5G is most likely to impact urban area performance as it will be deployed in centres of high population density. Operators will still need to prove and maintain 4G and even 3G performance across wider geographies as that’s how we use our phones. We accept that when on the move and in more rural locations that performance will be lower, but we still have expectations about minimum performance.”
Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s (EE) Consumer Business, said:
“We have relentlessly invested in improving our customers’ experience of our network. We’re connecting customers in more places than ever before, more reliably than ever before, and with the fastest data speeds in the UK. We’ve been driving forward the UK’s mobile infrastructure for five years, and we’ll keep going – with 5G launching next year to raise the bar yet again.”
The report concludes by talking rather optimistically about the roll-out of 5G technology in 2019, although it should be noted that most operators will only have very limited trial networks live between the latter part of 2018 and the middle of 2019.
Meanwhile a full scale commercial deployment won’t really begin to take place until 2020 because that’s when Ofcom is expected to release most of the necessary spectrum, not to mention that the availability of vital hardware will have also improved.
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So we do expect to see some 5G in 2019 and maybe even the start of a limited commercial roll-out at EE, yet most of those early deployments and trials will focus on fixed wireless connectivity instead of mobile services. As such it’ll still be awhile before the mobile deployment gets into full swing and then several years until the country reaches a strong level of national coverage.
The first 5G services will almost inevitably attract a premium price and initial speeds will be better than 4G, albeit not spectacularly so (performance will take time to mature, just like 3G and 4G before it).
Separately EE has today said that they’re boosting speeds to people in Cardiff, Hull, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London by introducing Five Carrier Aggregation (5CA) technology, which also turns some of the old 2G and 3G airwaves (e.g. 2100MHz) into 4G ones.
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