NET CHECK Study Names Vodafone UK as London’s Best Mobile Network
Mobile operator Vodafone UK has come top in a new network benchmarking study of 4G and 5G (broadband and calls) performance across London, which was conducted by the Berlin-based NET CHECK organisation and saw them score the highest number of ranking points (932.83 out of a possible 1,000 points).
The study, which involved a mix of driving tests that were performed by NET CHECK’s team between 30th of October and 7th of November 2024, was carried out across all 32 London boroughs and the City of London area using Samsung S23+ smartphones. The measurement technicians drove 23 routes and covered a distance of 1018km across Greater London.
The testing itself involved a range of voice and data service categories including, accessibility, reliability, speech quality and mobile broadband speed-tests using customer applications such as the browsing of popular web pages, video streaming and more. For data services, a total of around 15,700 data samples per operator were collected. For voice services, around 1,390 test calls were made and 12 speech samples were collected in each test call, resulting in a total of around 16,600 speech samples.
Advertisement
Overall, Vodafone scored the highest number of ranking points – 932.83 out of a possible 1,000 points. EE ranked second, closely following with around 9 points less (923.45). After that, O2 (Virgin Media) took third place on 834.16 points, while Three UK fell behind its competitors on just 757.82 points.
The study summarises its results in detail below, although you can read the full report to get the proper context for each measurement.
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.
« BDUK Close Gigabit Broadband Vouchers for Newcastle and North Tyneside
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 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.
It’s definitely a toss up between Vodafone and O2 in London. EE is useless in a lot of indoor locations, and Three struggles with capacity.
PAY2WIN useless benchmarks.
Problems with EE is indoor coverage and voice calls quality. Left 5 years ago for above reason and joined last month on sim only contract. Nothing changed but outdoor coverage and 5g speed very good.
I have Vodafone as my main line and have no issues. Good 5g and 4g coverage in London also Vodafone have more 5g standalone coverage than other networks.
Each different testing company has different “best network”s.
I don’t see the point anyway, whatever is best today could be rubbish tomorrow, and even if its the best and greatest you can still find yourself with it not working the next day. Like standing on tottenham court road with a full 5G signal on the greatest most bestest network ever (EE) and not being able to make calls and not having any web pages work.
Exactly, take the same winning Vodafone SIM elsewhere not in London and it will quickly become the worst one. Everyone buy what is best for them.
They didn’t cover that many roads from the look of the report?
Also they don’t even say what time of day they tested the networks? This will change a lot over a 24 hour period.
Also – using a “SwissQual Benchmarker II (Rohde & Schwarz)” – REALLY REPRESENTS USER EXPERIENCE! I have 5 at home /s
Vodafone is definitely very good in central London and even works inside buildings where EE fails, but they haven’t invested as much outside the fancy parts of the city where these tests are usually made… EE has a twice as dense network in some areas and you see that in both coverage and data speeds.
O2… really!! This has yet to bring anything near full 5G speeds across London.
Not sure how “Whatsapp calls” can be rated as calls, when both the UE & network treat these as data traffic. And if WA is included, why not include Messenger, Facetime and numerous other similar apps.
EE came top on several of (what seems to me) important voice ratios – setup success, dropped rate, and “disturbed setup”.
I drive all day and on the phone to colleagues I can say that Vodafone isn’t all that if you need data at the same time. The amount of times I have to drop the call just for data to come back on is ridiculous. It’s ok for short calls but needing traffic on Waze and a long call, Vodafone isn’t that good.
EE and Three seem to be better in this regard to which I’ve tested. Also I find EE the best for calls with HD+ being more apparent than the others. I don’t need blazing speeds for data but having none at all is not an option to me. I have a 1p (EE) main line and Asda (Vodafone) £5 SIM as a cheap second line in my phone for back up instead.