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UK Still Trails Most of EU with Poor Level of 5G Mobile Availability UPDATE

Monday, Jan 20th, 2025 (8:39 am) - Score 2,720
Ookla-two-speed-5G-europe-availability-map

New data from Ookla, which operates the popular Speedtest.net internet connection benchmarking service, has revealed that the United Kingdom still places near the bottom of the table in Europe for 5G mobile availability (mobile broadband) on a score of just 42.2% (i.e. the percentage of users with 5G devices spending most of their time connected to 5G networks).

By comparison, the Nordic operators have much to celebrate. In Q4 2024, Nordic countries claimed three of the top five positions in Europe for 5G Availability. Furthermore, all four Nordic countries ranked within the top ten. Denmark retained its position as Europe’s leader, achieving an impressive 5G Availability of 83.4%, narrowly surpassing Switzerland, which remains the only other European country to exceed the 80% milestone to date.

Admittedly, country-to-country comparisons are notoriously difficult things to get right, but the new results are particularly poor for a country like the UK, which was once one of the front-runners in the world for early 5G deployments and performance (at least between 2019 and 2020). Mobile operators often point to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and supply shortages, but those hit other countries too.

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Luke Kehoe, Industry Analyst at Ookla (Europe), said:

“The United Kingdom recorded 5G Availability of 42.2% in Q4 2024, according to Speedtest Intelligence data. This places the UK behind its Western European peers—Ireland (61.9%), France (65.7%), and Germany (63.4%)—in 5G rollout progress and significantly trailing European leaders in the Nordic region, where 5G Availability exceeds 65% across Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The UK’s underperformance in 5G Availability highlights deeper structural barriers hindering its rollout progress. This is particularly striking given the UK’s similarly high levels of urbanisation to the Nordics and its relatively less rugged and remote topography compared to countries like Norway—factors that should provide a comparative advantage for 5G network deployment in the UK.

The success of the Nordics in achieving high levels of 5G Availability in both rural and urban areas stems in part from robust policy measures aimed at incentivising widespread 5G rollouts, something the UK can learn from. For example, Denmark allowed operators to bid for reductions in their 5G spectrum license fees in exchange for agreeing to coverage commitments in underserved areas, accelerating the deployment of the 700 MHz band, which is critical for widespread coverage deep indoors and in rural areas.”

The UK’s situation tends to reflect a combination of issues, such as the previous government’s U-turn to ban Huawei – this hit about a year after some operators (e.g. EE) had already started their roll-outs. Mobile operators previously warned that the decision, which also impacted existing 4G kit due to the close interdependency of their networks, could delay the completion of the 5G rollout by 2-3 years and add costs of up to £2bn across all operators.

In addition, Ofcom could have been faster to release 5G friendly spectrum and indeed they still haven’t begun the auction for a large chunk of millimetre wave (mmW) radio spectrum frequency in the 26GHz and 40GHz bands (here). This will be used by mobile operators to deliver faster 5G (mobile broadband) services in dense urban areas and some fixed wireless broadband links.

On top of that, the previous Conservative UK government was fairly lacklustre when it came to setting ambitious targets for 5G. Back in 2017 they talked about getting “the majority of the population covered by a 5G signal by 2027,” which was a very low bar and most commercial operators hit that between 2022 and 2023. However, before leaving office they did pledge for “all populated areas to be covered by ‘standalone’ 5G (5G-plus) by 2030” (here), while the new Labour government has more generally pledged to “make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030“. But solid geographic coverage targets have not been set.

Finally, mobile operators are continuing to face plenty of obstacles when building new masts, particularly around the difficulty of securing planning permission in a timely and efficient fashion. But the recent merger between Vodafone and Three UK does still aspire to reach more than 99% of the UK population with their 5G Standalone (SA) network by 2034 and push fixed wireless access (mobile home broadband) to 82% of households by 2030, which may also encourage rivals to do something similar.

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Perhaps we’ll do better when 6G comes along around 2028-2030.

UPDATE 21st Jan 2025 @ 11:18am

We’ve added a comment from Ookla above.

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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 .
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20 Responses

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  1. Avatar photo Phil says:

    Not surprised as UK fall behind for both FTTP and 5G.

    1. Avatar photo Martin Carlsson says:

      That’s simply not the case, Phil. The UK is now placed in the mid-tier among European nations—about 14th or 15th—in a ranking of total FTTH coverage percentage. And that’s excluding the hybrid coax. When you factor in the sheer speed of the current buildout, along with the removal of copper, it’s clear that the UK is making progress.

      It’s only really the 5G that is substandard with no clear plan on how to improve it.

    2. Avatar photo Ivor says:

      the “planning theory of everything” at its best.

      Most FTTP does not require planning permission or any sort of local approval so they can just get on with it, particularly in Openreach’s case where they are able to maximise the use of existing infrastructure and the eventual “visual impact” is much the same as it is now, with one wire replaced with another.

      But mobile masts do, and they get the full force of our broken planning system as everything from its visibility to the discredited health “risk” is considered. It’s as if someone’s proposing to build a toxic waste landfill next to a housing estate. Is it any wonder that it happens so slowly?

      That is in addition to the diminishing use case for 5G. All the nonsense about the “5G race” and how it will be everything to everyone (pun not intended) has fallen away and it is just about increasing capacity. The hype crowd has moved on to fluffing up AI instead. If that capacity isn’t needed in a given area, what’s the reason to invest in 5G?

  2. Avatar photo Jimmy says:

    It’s a positive development that operators can now use/change rooftop sites without having to involve the planning department of the local authority.

  3. Avatar photo A Stevens says:

    I’m just 1.5 miles from the centre of a city of 130,000. I still can’t get 5G at home, although coverage seems to appear when I travel 200-300 metres in any direction from the house! And still no FTTP either. I think I’d be far better off in the sticks, connectivity-wise!

  4. Avatar photo Chris says:

    The problem with all the targets is that there is to quality or service measures. Great if they can get 80-90% of the population covered but if the backhaul doesn’t support it what’s the point. I can pull down 200Mbs+ at 4:00am but 4:00pm when all the kids get out of school I’ll struggle to get 10Mbs. Untill Ofcom start regulating the service levels 5g can’t be relied upon as an alternative to the fixed lines.

    1. Avatar photo Sonic says:

      This 100%.

      I now get a very weak 5G signal from EE but it’s only as good as a rubbish 4G connection. But hey, the box has been ticked. Job done.

    2. Avatar photo Mark Smith says:

      Nothing to do with the backhaul. Everything to do with the laws of physics.
      There is only so much bandwidth available in the radio spectrum in any given cell site.
      So the more users the less bandwidth available to each user.
      You would need extreme and costly densification of the network with a small cell on every lamp post to provide the sort of service level you are wanting.in built up areas.

  5. Avatar photo UK says:

    people do not need 5G in their phones. in Poland the internet is available on the phone everywhere, maybe not at 5G speed but it is enough for everything you do on the phone. in the UK it is not even available on the M6 ​​motorway!

    1. Avatar photo Mark Smith says:

      Absolutely. The most taxing application on a smart phone is streaming an HD movie and that barely requires 20 Mbs on such a small screen.
      Far better to focus on deploying ubiquity than on costly 5G.
      I have actually switched 5G off on my phone, as it uses less battery to stay on 4G instead of switching whenever 5G is available.
      4G is more than enough every current application on a smart phone..

  6. Avatar photo Jon says:

    And stop bald british moron showing poland and central europe always bad…. UK apart from new cars on the roads is a country of poverty and misery. from this hatred for central europe your brains are fucked up

    1. Avatar photo A Stevens says:

      There are (or were?) tens of thousands of Polish people here and we love them. What are you on about?

  7. Avatar photo Dave says:

    5G is a waste of time – very few customers recieve the holy grail ‘theoretical speeds’. Everywhere I go 4GLTE is on par, not to mention the better reception it offers.

    I’ve also noticed that ever since the Three’s 5G roll out, their overall speeds have declined across the board. I’ve also noticed alot of mobile masts in towns and cities are so congested now, it’s better to use wifi.

    1. Avatar photo Will says:

      Totally agree, for 5G to be a success either more masts or repeaters need to be deployed, the range particularly on Vodafone is quite poor…

  8. Avatar photo Will says:

    I think having more masts would actually benefit more people rather than pushing for 5G. There are still way too many areas with no service/2G, the 3G switch off hasn’t helped in that respect…

  9. Avatar photo Andrew says:

    Because we started too late as we did with full fibre, most of the world started FTTP in 2005 ish, we didn’t start until 2015

    1. Avatar photo Mark Smith says:

      Because it is and should be about outcomes for end users and return of investment.
      Appreciate there were parts of the country such as rural areas which needed better connectivity, but most users on super fast copper broadband speeds had/still have more than enough capacity for their household’s use cases. If anything it was nearly always poor wi-fi which was the issue not the backhaul.
      Likewise, when it comes to mobile no one uses anywhere near the capacity and speeds offered by 5G and wont do for a very long time until some new use cases come along. What is far more important is getting wireless ubiquity where we need it such as trains, in buildings, on planes, then 5G everywhere.
      5G was completely over hyped and hasn’t and wont deliver the value to society and economy that was promised. Precisely because most of it was delivered already with 4G LTE.
      So, I dont really get this whole race and league table thing where the UK is supposedly behind.
      Much better to focus on what each country is actually using these networks for.
      And I think it would then show the UK right up there in terms of data usage, and use case outcomes.
      Most people would be shocked how little of their broadband and mobile capacity they actually use.
      And why should networks race to invest in 5G networks just because of the hype created by Nokia and Ericsson’s marketing machines.

  10. Avatar photo Mark says:

    We had nothing other than Virgin until 18th months ago in my part of Plymouth, now have fttp from Openreach and cityfibre. Also weak 5g signal (outdoors only) from Vodafone, 3 and EE. 02 are about a Mile up road!

  11. Avatar photo BaldHeadedMoron says:

    The UK is always first… at being last 🙂 Im alright Jack

  12. Avatar photo Mark says:

    5G is way too overrated, I’ve used it in many locations, take ages for pages to load, sometimes 3g is faster but that’s been turned off which is a shame, a slow connection is better than a spotty or no connection, it can get so bad that I can have full bars on 5G and YT fails to load the home page, forcing me to switch to 4G only just to get a signal

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