West Midlands Named Best Connected UK Region for 5G Cover
A new report from telecoms analyst firm Umlaut, which analysed geographic 5G mobile coverage across the UK’s Combined Authority areas, has identified the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) region as being the best connected in the UK, with 65% of locations having access from at least one operator.
The figure for the West Midlands also represents a significant improvement from the 22% recorded back in December 2021. The next closest region was Greater Manchester, which scored 53% in April 2023 and that’s up from 18% in December 2021. But such improvements should hardly come as a big surprise, since both regions are much more urban centric and have been a strong focus for EE (BT), O2 (VMO2), Three UK and Vodafone.
The news follows last month’s development, which saw Birmingham City Council (BCC) sign one of the first Open Access Agreements (OAA) with telecoms infrastructure providers, which will enable them to use council lampposts to host so-called “small cells“. Such mini base stations are often used in busy areas, where they can help spread 4G / 5G mobile broadband and, sometimes, WiFi services.
Such access agreements typically take more than 12 months to put in place but, thanks to support from the West Midlands 5G project as part of the Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator, this has been reduced to just 6 working weeks.
Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands and WMCA Chair, said:
“Given the present and future importance of 5G technology here in the UK, it’s great to see our region at the top of the connectivity table.
This means local people and businesses are benefitting from the lightning-fast connectivity that will enable them to thrive in the months and years ahead – supporting the creation of high quality jobs.
By continuing to grow our region’s 5G infrastructure, the West Midlands will remain at the forefront of digital innovation – harnessing the power of this technology, attracting investment and driving innovation all for the benefit of residents right across the region.”
Sadly, we’ve not been allowed to post the full results from this study due to unspecified issues.
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 Linkedin.
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I’m with 3UK for 19years. I really don’t know how someone can sit in an office, look at a computer and come out with rubbish like this when, as in my area (Coventry east) there is no 5G coverage on 3UK, Vodafone or EE, 02 say they do have coverage, how good it is, I don’t know.
Coventry was on 3UK’s list of the first of many cities to go live with 5G and so I suppose 1 5G mast puts a tick in that box although we do have a few more now.
Travelling to central Birmingham and outlying areas regularly and from experience there are large areas where 3UK have 5G coverage but due to overcapacity issues you have a good 5G signal but no traffic which then switches you back to 4G for more of the same, this is a widespread issue not just in isolated area’s, sound familiar?
If you want the truth about these networks they should get out and about and ask the very people who use them, the customers and not publish a picture of impending perfection we all know to be false.
Umlaut typically uses a mix of walk/drive tests and also gets data from millions of mobile users by adding its benchmarking code into various apps. Naturally, the anecdotal experience of the odd individual user may differ from the average, but that doesn’t make the results of the study wrong.
Whilst your argument is true Mark, the OP does raise a valid comment that way the reports findings are presented do not accord with user experience. I live and work in the area away from the mentioned Coventry, and mobile coverage is patchy and poor even as I travel into Birmingham city centre.
That might still be the best of all UK regions, if those other regions are worse, but seems this report was commissioned for bragging rights by the region’s mayor.
I’m intrigued by the BCC allowing lampost access.
Will this be used in outer Birmingham suburbs I wonder…I’ve seen Threes setups along the A45 and they do look pretty simple, but I’ve yet to try them out.
I’m not sure but if as a pilot scheme, it shows more benefits and is cost effective than Sunak should push all councils to step up and follow suit as it will look good on the councils who do this plus it’s a quick vote winner.
Sunak (or any PM) has some but limited powers to push any local authority to do anything – thank goodness, giving the cluelessness of recent governments. The option to use highways lighting is complicated by the fact so much of it is managed through PFI contracts with private companies (used to be a business operation of a former employer of mine). Whilst ownership remains with the local authority, if the PFI contract has not allowed for things like 5G, then it becomes a variation, ie a licence to print money for the PFI contractor. Even if you get past that you need co-operation between local authority, highway lighting operator, telecoms operator, and to sort out the backhaul from each mini-mast. Like so many things, pretty easy for a contained trial with co-operative parties, outside of that a minefield.
Interesting, I live in South West Birmingham Quinton, junction 3 M5 motorway. I am on Tesco Mobile piggy back on O2. No 5G here, I have just drove to my youngest daughter’s house in SW Dudley NO 5G there, my wife checked on route via Halesowen, Blackheath and Rowley Regis, NO 5G on route. I did look on route, I could not see any 5G masts.
Yet we were on a cruise in the Eastern Med 3 weeks ago, lots of 5G signals in the countries we visited.
I live on a hill the highest point in Birmingham, we have a very poor and weak signal from O2, on voice calls we have to go upstairs into the front bedroom to have a decent call. We are fortunate that Openreach had a major push and covered most of Woodgate Exchange area with FTTP, even our direct feed dp was upgrade, so we can use TescoWiFiCall or WhatsApp etc.
BobV – out of interest then, why do you stay with Tesco Mobile if, as you say, you don’t seem to have the connectivity matching the providers claims?
I live in the Midlands and travel through those areas too and often have a 5G signal with EE. At home I have a good 5G signal coupled with good speed during the day it’s around 150mb and at night late it’s gone as high as 450mb downstream.
To me it sounds as though you’re paying to be on a network which you then have to subsidise with your own WiFi from your separate FTTP contract to be able to use properly?
Reply to Steve, the main reason we have stopped with Tesco, is, at the moment we have a very good deal with Tesco Mobile, and until the end of 2023, we can use our data,voice & txt across Europe as at home, which is a great advantage for us, this coming year. Also I was trying to illustrate that 5G is not readily available on Tesco/02 in quite a few areas, also I have friends and relatives on 3,Vodafone & EE who also do not have 5G locally and in fact 4G can be quite varied. I know for a fact there have been local applications for cell sites but the Green Brigade have vigorously apposed them. So I think we here in SW Birmingham are sparsely served.
Hi bobv
I’m not too far from you, on the other side of J3, towards Halesowen and have tried both EE and Three mobile, both have good 5G coverage and speeds can ratchet up to 1Gbs DL and 100Mbs UP, so much so we have got rid of our fixed line connection and bought an 5G router and data SIM. With speeds averaging 500Mbs and 50Mbs.
A 5G mast has just gone up in lapal just off the J3 on the manor way. Speeds and coverage are there, if you pick the right provider and are in the right location..
Reply to Shukat, thanks for the information, I will look into both EE & Three, as you suggest to do both Mobile and Broadband, thanks.