Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

Study Reveals Mobile Data Performance on Manchester to Cardiff Train

Tuesday, Jan 14th, 2025 (12:00 pm) - Score 600
Train-with-a-mobile-signal-overhead-CoPilot-AI-Image-for-MJ-on-14012025

Network analyst firm Streetwave has today shared the results from a new survey they conducted, which examined the coverage and performance of 4G and 5G mobile (broadband) networks for people travelling on a train from Manchester (Piccadilly) in England to Cardiff (Central) in Wales. Overall, Vodafone came top.

The railway route involved in this study connects Manchester and Cardiff via Crewe, Shrewsbury, Hereford and Newport. According to the ORR – 51.5 million passenger journeys take place annually in stations along this route. Streetwave is understood to have taken their portable data collection equipment onboard for just one of these trips, thus the results below should be considered very anecdotal, albeit still interesting.

NOTE: Throughput speed (consumer experience), signal strength, network generation and frequency band information were collected across all four of the main UK mobile operators – EE (BT), Three UK, Vodafone and O2 (Virgin Media).

In addition, multiple train companies operate the Manchester to Cardiff route, including Transport for Wales (TfW), CrossCountry and others. But the study only involved a TfW train that left Manchester Piccadilly at 12:30pm on 02/01/2025 (this was a British Rail Class 197 train full of passengers).

Advertisement

All four of the UK’s mobile operators were measured and their ‘Essential Coverage‘ scores across the journey were as follows. Take note that Streetwave defines Essential Coverage as being reflective of locations where the network provides users with connectivity of above 1Mbps download speeds, 0.5Mbps upload, and below 100ms (milliseconds) of latency (i.e. covering or allowing only the most basic of use cases / needs).

Essential Coverage Achieved on the Route
1. Vodafone – 57%
2. EE – 48%
3. Three UK – 37%
4. O2 – 34%

Put another way, the company’s simulated passenger on each network spent the following amount of time without a dependable internet connection on the 3-hour 13-minute journey: Vodafone – 83 minutes, EE – 100 minutes, Three UK – 123 minutes and O2 – 127 minutes. Clearly there’s room for improvement, although it would have been useful to know which specific parts of the route suffered the poorest patches of connectivity.

With the UK Government prioritising economic growth – improving connectivity along railway lines should be a strategic move to prevent the working population from spending hundreds of millions of hours each year trapped in Faraday cages without reliable internet access,” said George Gibson, Streetwave’s Co-Founder & Partnership Director.

Share with Twitter
Share with Linkedin
Share with Facebook
Share with Reddit
Share with Pinterest
Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews
Comments
10 Responses

Advertisement

  1. Avatar photo Jim says:

    My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read EE didn’t come out on top!

  2. Avatar photo Pip says:

    If I was on a TFW train I’d use their Internet connection not my mobile operators.

    1. Mark-Jackson Mark Jackson says:

      I haven’t checked into the TfW setup, but often you’ll find the onboard WiFi will be supplied by a mobile network. Sometimes satellites are used too, but that’s not common yet and has its own caveats related to cost, practicality etc.

  3. Avatar photo Pepstar says:

    I don’t this is correct “multiple train companies operate the Manchester to Cardiff route, including Transport for Wales (TfW), CrossCountry, Avanti West Coast, and Great Western Railway (GWR).”

    To my knowledge the only operator which runs on the route from Manchester to Cardiff via Shrewsbury is only TfW.

    1. Mark-Jackson Mark Jackson says:

      That’s just what I got back when Googling the question. For example (others give slightly different operators, but still say more than TfW):

      https://www.raileurope.com/en-gb/destinations/manchester-cardiff-train

    2. Avatar photo Pip says:

      Over the past 2 years I’ve travelled on numerous times from Cardiff to Manchester. There has never been any other company suppling travel, Only TFW. Google only says other companies operate on the line, not what part of the line.

    3. Avatar photo Ben says:

      I suspect you can travel on the listed companies by changing trains (e.g. at Birmingham New Street) however TfW are the only operator running _direct_ services: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:MAN/to/gb-nr:CDF/2025-01-14/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

  4. Avatar photo Ish says:

    So no else bothered by the AI generated picture then?

    1. Avatar photo AD says:

      No, just you

  5. Avatar photo Ben says:

    It would be fantastic if Streetwave would do a study on the Brighton mainline. It’s one of the busiest lines on the network and yet the phone signal seems really bad.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

NOTE: Your comment may not appear instantly (it may take several hours) due to static caching and moderation checks by the anti-spam system. Please be patient. We will reject comments that spam, troll, post via known fake IP/proxy servers or fall foul of our Online Safety and Content Policy.
Javascript must be enabled to post (most browsers do this automatically)

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 entries for comment content, display name, IP and email 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.
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: First 3 Months Free
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £23.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £25.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £25.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £19.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £19.00
300Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: First 3 Months Free
toob UK ISP Logo
toob £22.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £23.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6150)
  2. BT (3691)
  3. Politics (2777)
  4. Business (2481)
  5. Openreach (2446)
  6. Building Digital UK (2364)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2200)
  8. FTTC (2094)
  9. Statistics (1951)
  10. 4G (1856)
  11. Virgin Media (1811)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1615)
  13. Fibre Optic (1490)
  14. Wireless Internet (1477)
  15. 5G (1453)
Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon