Belfast Named Top of 16 UK Cities for Mobile Network Performance

RootMetrics and IHS Markit have today published the results of a new H1 2018 study into 4G and 3G mobile network operator performance across 16 of the United Kingdom’s “most populated metropolitan markets” (cities), which found that Belfast was the best and London the worst.

The analysis appears to be taken from the same dataset that recently named EE as the best overall mobile operator in the UK (here), which was based off over 593,008 tests that had been conducted using unmodified Samsung Galaxy S8 Smartphones purchased from carrier stores. As part of that the testing team also travelled more than 20,928 miles and visited 654 indoor locations to measure performance.

The rankings are based on an average of the RootScores (i.e. several categories are rated up to a maximum of 100 points) for the four major UK networks (EE, O2, Three UK and Vodafone) in a given metropolitan area, weighted by the estimated national percentage of subscribers for each network.

Overall Belfast offered the best performance (scoring 96.3 out of 100) by ranking 1st in three categories (i.e. overall performance, network reliability and data performance). What’s more, Belfast also ranked 2nd for network speed (mobile broadband) and call performance.

By comparison London, which had the biggest population, came bottom of the pile (scored 92.5 out of 100). The city came bottom in most categories, although Rootmetrics noted how “operator performance in London was generally quite good, [but] the market’s rankings were pulled down by comparatively slow speeds from O2 and relatively high rates of blocked and dropped calls by both O2 and Vodafone.”

Head of Product at RootMetrics and Executive Director of Performance Benchmark at IHS Markit, Kevin Hasley, added: “As the capital city and business epicenter of the UK, you would expect connectivity that is equal to or better than rivals, but that hasn’t been the case to this point. 5G may well be the cure London needs, but currently, performance in other cities like Belfast and Edinburgh has been stronger.”

Overall Performance Scores

Network Reliability Scores

Service Speed Scores

Data Performance Scores

Call Performance Scores

Text Performance Scores

The full report can be read here.