EE Named Best UK Mobile Operator in New 2024 Network Test Study
Mobile operator EE (BT) has come top in umlaut and Connect’s latest annual 2024 UK Mobile Network Test, which used a range of different benchmarks to test 4G (voice and data / broadband) and 5G performance across 19 cities, 27 towns and along 10,480km of major roads. On the flip side, O2 (Virgin Media) once again found themselves at the bottom.
The study’s more scientific drivetests and walktests were both conducted between 28th October to 13th November 2024 using Samsung Galaxy S23 Smartphones for each operator. Additionally, some of the walk test teams visited several cities and travelled on trains between them. The test area accounts for 17.2 million people, or approximately 25.7% of the total population of the United Kingdom.
On top of that, the analysts also harnessed crowdsourced data, which was collected over 24 weeks from the end of May to mid-November 2024. A total of 7,449 million data samples were collected by this method from mobile phone users across the UK, which stems from tests conducted via various Smartphone apps with a special background diagnosis process.
Advertisement
Overall, EE came top in all three of the primary data, voice and crowdsourced testing categories, scoring a total of 913 points out of a possible 1,000. Following them were Vodafone (815), Three UK (765) and finally, at the bottom, was O2 (729) – though they did improve their score by 29 points this year. Otherwise, this marks the tenth time in a row that the BT brand has topped the study.
Hannes Ruegheimer, Editor at Connect, said: “Congratulations to EE for winning our connect Mobile Network Test in the UK with the highest scores in all test disciplines. Our results reflect a positive trend: EE and VMO2 had the biggest improvements in score.”
The Full Report includes a lot more data, and we’ve pasted some of that below, although it’s wise to read the main report in order to get the correct context. For example, the first report extracts below depict the 5G based mobile broadband data rates that the study got when conducting a simple 7-second download test. The second image after that shows the crowdsourced results.
Advertisement
7 Second Download Test on 5G Connections
Crowdsource Results
Advertisement
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.
« Ofcom Enhance Spectrum Sharing for UK Mobile and Wireless Broadband
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message. By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your comment content, display name, IP, email and / or website details in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
NOTE 1: Sometimes your comment might not appear immediately due to site cache (this is cleared every few hours) or it may be caught by automated moderation / anti-spam.
NOTE 2: Comments that break our rules, spam, troll or post via known fake IP/proxy servers may be blocked or removed.
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (6095)
- BT (3668)
- Politics (2750)
- Business (2455)
- Openreach (2425)
- Building Digital UK (2350)
- Mobile Broadband (2172)
- FTTC (2089)
- Statistics (1929)
- 4G (1834)
- Virgin Media (1788)
- Ofcom Regulation (1599)
- Fibre Optic (1476)
- Wireless Internet (1471)
- 5G (1430)
O2 are the absolute worst service and company I’ve ever had to deal with, constant dropped calls they wouldn’t acknowledge, non existent internet speeds even though their coverage map said excellent for 4g indoors and 5g outdoors
Their excuse for that was they were upgrading their masts in the area, they were not
Eventually filed a complaint and the ombudsman agreed with me, a full refund and cancellation with no penalty
Never ever again
Avoid!
90% of people have no idea what does it mean, most of the people are more interested how much will it cost per month and what they can get in this price, for instance included roaming etc.
Absolutely this. I’m sure many O2 customers just accept poor service as “how it is” and either don’t realise better is available or tolerate it because of either price or additional promotions.
But keep on complaining. And for as long as that’s all they do, where’s the incentive on O2 to fix their network….
As per news on this page O2 is slowly upgrading their network. I am one of O2 customers and the main reason for that is inclusive roaming (I am vacationing in continental Europe twice a year) and cheap international calls bundle for £1 a month.
Spot on
My experience with EE was very poor customer service wise, and I left about a year ago.
It’s a shame because their network is very good although indoors it can be rubbish at times. I’m with Vodafone now on a really good deal, and I’m more than happy with their service in my area.
I know a Tom in the Vodafone corporate affairs team….
BT for you, just because they change the name, don’t mean they are any different.
I left BT years ago for that reason, worse customer service ever, awful. I went back to plusnet only because they could get me online quicker than others at the time. I was going to leave after the contract, but their customer was much better than BT, even if they belong to them, they were run as a separate company.
BT/EE, I will never use, I would rather go back to Vodafone and I don’t want to do that if I can help it. Saying that I doubt I will ever buy a package of a main network again, I have been using virtual networks for a few years now
Not that I spend enough for the main networks to worry about it, they are going after people who spend stupid amounts of money on new phones every 12 months.
My experience of EE has been very different. The quality of the customer support is very high indeed. I found all the staff very helpful with a recent switch in operator and with an issue around eSIM setup. I would say though that EE seems to be suffering some of the disorganised systems and processes that were always a part of BT’s customer service. The quality of the mobile broadband on EE is also excellent. It was even good enough to use my mobile as a network hub during a brief outage of my broadband connection.
@ Ad47uk: PlusNet is BT.
If the 3/voda merger goes thru, I’m seriously considering a switch as well. The only thing that keeps bugging me is the 25GB FUP in the EU roaming. That’s not a lot. Despite the fact that my EE bill has nearly doubled due the CPI I can still use my entire allowance while traveling… But 5g indoor reception sucks and now they want people to pay extra for SA access. Pick your poison, I guess.
They are really good but the pricing is truly eye watering
Suggest using one of their MVNOs, namely 1P Mobile.
I live and work the North wales coast areas, and considering EE networking is supposed to be all singing all dancing company its time they pulled their fingers out, networking data is PATHETIC
and here they are supposed to be top of their league, this survey should of been carried out up here its shite so how about EE blitzing up here and listening more to what is being asked of them
Of the four main providers, the Ofcom coverage maps for 5G Data suggest that EE provides the best coverage of the four main providers.
Spot on, I’m with O2 for the cheap price and free worldwide roaming.
The service is pretty poor with slow speeds compared to EE or Vodafone, though I found it a lot more stable than Three
Not in Oxford, EE failed to notice their main mast was on an old shopping mall that was being demolished and had to be turned off in February 2024, 10 months later they are still pondering how to replace. Lousy service! The worst supplier!
Do you have any evidence for your assertion of “failed to notice”?
The Oxford situation is unfortunate for sure, but how familiar are you with the NTQ process and/or the Oxford planning regime? Not very, I suspect.
I agree EE is the best, but in my area it isn’t so I chose Vodafone after going between them and EE recently…
Just noticed that they didn’t even touch most of SW England, not really a fair test…
Most of these tests do not consider indoor coverage which is just as important and will likely alter results a fair bit
I find O2 best for calls and indoor reach in London. With 3g unwind I reckon they will improve a fair bit in terms do speed and will likely lose some customers in the future when Vodafone merge hence losing losing subscribers which will reduce congestion