UK Disappoints in Global Comparison of 5G Mobile Broadband Speeds
Benchmarking firm Opensignal, which specialises in testing the performance of mobile networks, has published new research that reveals how the UK compares with the rest of the world for 5G based mobile broadband speeds (downloads and uploads) and availability. Suffice to say, we sit at the wrong end of the table.
The new research is based off crowdsourced data gathered from users on millions of devices (Smartphones etc.) between 1st March and 29th May 2023. Overall, the United Kingdom was found to deliver 5G availability (i.e. % of time spent on 5G) of just 10.1%, with average download speeds of 124.4Mbps, average peak download speeds of 501.3Mbps and average uploads of 14.7Mbps.
By comparison, South Korea and Puerto Rico lead in worldwide 5G Availability, with 5G users in these markets approaching half of time spent with an active 5G connection on scores of 42.9% and 48.4% respectively. South Korea and Singapore also topped the table for average 5G download speeds, scoring 432.5Mbps and 376.8Mbps respectively.
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As for average peak 5G download speeds, Bahrain came top on a staggering 1163.4Mbps, and they were followed by South Korea on 925.6Mbps. Finally, South Korea also came top for average 5G upload speeds on 42Mbps, and they were followed by Guatemala with 42Mbps.
Overall, the UK failed to place higher than the slowest third in any of the tables, which is disappointing given that we were one of the first countries to start rolling the technology out. But the UK Government’s decision to ban Huawei after the rollout had begun, which at the time had some of the best kit, did play a role here.
Equally, the regulators in other countries have often made more radio spectrum available to 5G than the UK. For example, Ofcom has yet to release any mmWave bands (e.g. 24-26GHz) for operators to harness, although it’s admittedly unclear how much demand there might be for this. Such bands are much more expensive to deploy, due in part to the need for a denser network to counteract the coverage limitations.
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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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I think another big factor for coverage in the UK are the restrictions on masts. In many other countries, it’s common to find cellular towers that aren’t subject to height restrictions, providing wide geographical coverage. Couple that with the fact so many street poles get refused by British councils.
I was under the impression this has been highly relaxed in recent years (now requiring no planning permission unless there are protection orders). Yes the height is not as much but if that means more tower density then that should be better (shouldn’t it?) for low-pen signals like 5G. One thing I think this survey misses is the backhaul – and I guess this is where tower density might not matter. I get a full o2 signal where I live but often the connection times out – guessing tower is just far beyond capacity. And when I mean the connections time out, I mean a text based webpage will not load. From what I read here in the UK this is huge problem with O2 (It was with Three in the past, and if EE spreads MVNO packages perhaps them too soon).
@ MrD nope, not relaxed. Despite government supposed new rules to speed up 5G rollout, councils are using other rules to refuse. e.g
This is contrary to the intentions of the National Planning Policy Framework, Policy S10 and BN5 of the (insert town/city name) Joint Core Strategy and Policy E20 and E26 of the (insert town/city name) Local Plan.
This is considered contrary to Policy S10 of the (insert town/city name) Joint Core Strategy, E20 of the (insert town/city name) Local Plan and aims of the National Planning Policy Framework.
CK Hutchison have applied 5 times here in different parts of the city to put masts and 4 times they have been refused permission due to the height of the masts. The other was refused due to where it was going to be built, and it would block a footpath,
I had Three denied multiple times for putting a phone mast in an estate near me because it “doesn’t fit in with the local area” and all the local planning framework stuff, in the end they got tired of it and disputed it with the government
All the planning refusals around my area have been Three/ MBNL, even though o2 and Vodafone have pole applications accepted in the same areas. Its no wonder Three want to leave the UK. It would be good to have some sort of investigation into whether there is some sort of preferential bias going on.
@AuRevoir3, maybe because they are owned by a Chinese company.
You cannot chive true 5g using macro masts. The only way you can get the benefits from 5g such as increased capacity and bandwidth speeds is to deploy 5g standalone on small cells at a much denser layer.
This requires MNOs to invest at that level. Something which UK MNOs have been reluctant to do.
They are alomost purely focussed on macro sites in order to get fake 5g deployed everywhere. Fake being getting a 5g symbol on users phones displays but not much more than that compared to 4g.
Ultimately, they will need to invest in 10s of 1000s of small cells and the cloud based network to run it all.
They are reluctant to do that while there aren’t any compelling use cases which can’t be delivered over 4g and actually need 5g.
Nokia and Ericsson are also pulling their pants down over pricing for 5g stand alone licensing costs.
How can you compare ALL those other countries to the UK? Pure whataboutism. Stop moaning about it.
That’s litterally the point of a comparison.
One persons ‘comparison’ is another persons ‘whataboutism’.
Barely get 1 bar of signal here on EE or 3, so 5G is a pipe dream!
Yes, where I live ANY signal would be good and I’m not in the back of beyond by any means.
Well isn’t that the point of newer generations of technology?
Exactly that. A SLOW 4G service would be an improvement where I live, it’s that bad (all carriers).
Without a serious rethink in the planning laws when it comes to telecom infrastructure, this situation is not likely to change. Every time I go overseas, I’m blown away at just how appalling the mobile infrastructure here is.
This is the kind of speeds I was getting in “third world” India recently: https://www.speedtest.net/result/i/5561960196
Before the keyboard warriors get all riled up, yes, I’m very well aware you can get faster speeds in the UK in certain locations. And I’m not saying that we should be getting blanket gigabit speeds everywhere. But when one location is able to get a gig down and people like me get 0.2 Mbps down on the same network, then there is a serious, fundamental problem here. And I’m not even remotely rural.
We need government/regulatory intervention to ensure everyone in the country is able to enjoy a ‘decent’ level of coverage (protected and guaranteed by law). It can be as little as 5 Mbps, but it HAS to be universal.
Be interested to see how China fares.
With all their spying software built into their phones, so their government can keep an eye on their citizens.
Lovely
@Adrian
Yet you are perfectly happy for MI5/GCHQ to monitor your comms here?
Ad47….. Spying software in Chinese phone? LoL… In their home country yeah. Government monitoring. But when Honor, Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi & others like oppo & OnePlus release phones here in UK and Europe, they have to abide by EU rules. That means when the put Android on those phones for our markets, there can’t be any data collecting for the Chinese government.
It is a misconception that Chinese phones collect data in phones all around the world.
I think its more a misconception that they don’t Michael. Like Google doesn’t either for every single android device.
@Michael V, that is what I meant in China, not in the phones we have here in the U.K, I myself have an Oppo phone and I had a Huawei phone before it.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be able to buy a phone produced in the U.K and without Android, but that is never going to happen and even if it did the apps would not be compatible. But we can dream 🙂
Not sure what my next phone will be when I eventually get one, maybe another Oppo, but hopefully it will be a few years before I have to do that.
@Kenny, this is a public comment area, so anyone can monitor it and I doubt the MI5/GCHQ are bothered about us here, if that is all they have to do then maybe the country should stop ploughing the money into them. LOL.
Come on, if anyone is going to say something that is of interest to the MI5/GCHQ they are not going to say it on here.
Is it that we have a better sign up to the organisation measuring the signal? I.e. is it skewed in some other countries by the demographic that uses the likes of OpenSignal.
That said the more people that install OpenSignal and turn bits of the UK amber and red for coverage, the more the network operators might take note that actual coverage does not match their shiny website coverage maps…..
I reached out to RootMetrics some time ago to ask. They said they provide all four MNOs [Mob Network Operators] with the mapped coverage from us users & their own findings.
But realistically I don’t think the MNOs really take note.
I have opensignal, LTE Discovery & Cellmapper. I have Ookla speed test too that RootMetrics have merged with but their map doesn’t really have much effort put into it.
Not just me moaning about coverage maps on here then. What’s crazy is OFCOM’s approach to it. Complain that their map is not accurate and get told that’s what providers supply and we’re not interested. Why even bother then OFCOM?
It’s always boggling why Denmark are included in any pole really, it can barely be considered a country, more like a large gathering, of course it’s easier to provide services of ever kind for little more than a festival crowd
I see them all the time and it’s always my same opinion, it has to be like for like and Denmark certainly isn’t like for like and that goes for Norway too, there’s others but including these countries in almost any poll is always going to show them sitting near the top, it’s a distorted picture