Ofcom Study Examines UK Speed and Coverage of 4G and 5G Mobile Networks

The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has today published their 2025 Mobile Matters report, which uses Opensignal’s crowdsourced data (collected between October 2024 and March 2025) to benchmark the performance of UK mobile broadband networks by both technology (2G to 5G), nation and operator choice – including Three UK, O2, Vodafone and EE.

The results hold few surprises, but do still reveal some interesting details. For example, 71% of cellular network connections are now on 4G (down from 78% last year), while 28% are on 5G (up from 19.6%), 0.7% are on 3G (most mobile operators have now retired this) and just 0.2% remain on 2G. In urban areas of the UK, 29% of network connections were on 5G, compared to 19% in rural areas.

The study also added that 2% of network connections were made over the latest and fastest end-to-end 5G Standalone (SA) networks. Ofcom’s analysis further showed that 5G SA provided “significantly higher download speeds” than non-standalone 5G (NSA), with file download times about 45% faster on average. Standalone 5G also has lower latency. On the flip side, 5G SA had a lower average connection success rate (96%) than NSA 5G connections (98%), but that’s hardly a big difference.

In terms of individual mobile operators, EE had the highest proportion of network connections on 5G (32%), while Vodafone had the lowest for 5G (24%), but the highest share on 4G (76%). O2 had the lowest share of 4G connections (68%) and the highest proportion on 3G (3%), which isn’t surprising as they were one of the last to begin retiring their old 3G network.

The full report remains somewhat of a scatter gun blast of information, but Ofcom does provide an expanded summary of the key highlights.

Ofcom’s Mobile Matters 2025 Results

5G standalone vs 5G non-standalone performance
• 5G standalone accounted for 2% of all 5G connection attempts in the six months to March 2025. There are two main types of 5G: 5G standalone (5G SA) and 5G non-standalone (5G NSA), 5G SA being the more recent technology. UK MNOs have started to offer 5G SA but its use is currently low.

• Standalone 5G’s average response time (latency) was about 15% lower (better) than for 5G NSA. However, our analysis also indicated that 5G SA had a lower average connection success rate (95.9%) than 5G NSA (97.6%), although this was slightly higher than 4G’s.

• 5G SA provided significantly higher download speeds than 5G NSA. Seventy per cent of 5G SA download speeds measurements were at 100 Mbit/s or higher, compared to 46% for 5G NSA, and 2MB, 5MB and 10MB file download times, on average, were about 45% faster on 5G SA than over 5G NSA.

• However, the picture was more mixed for uploads. While 5G NSA had a higher proportion of low-speed connections (18% of 5G NSA upload speeds provided less than 2 Mbit/s compared to 10% on 5G SA) it also had a slightly higher share of higher-speed connections (30% of 5G NSA uploads were 20 Mbit/s or higher vs 28% on 5G SA).

Video streaming tests

• Overall, 98.2% of 30-second video streams completed without interruption over 5G. This was a slightly higher proportion than over 4G (96.6%) and much higher than the 88.3% 3G average. At an overall UK level, a higher proportion of 5G and 4G video streams completed without interruption in in urban areas than in rural areas.

Mobile network share and data connection success rate

• Over a quarter (28.3%) of network connection attempts were to 5G networks in 2025. This was a year-on-year increase of 8.8pp, largely at the expense of 4G, for which there was a 7.2pp decline in its share of connections.

• There was a small increase in the proportion of connections to 2G networks. This was very small (up by less than 0.1pp to 0.2%). The proportion of connections on 3G networks declined year on year, as these are being closed down.

• Mobile users with a 5G compatible tariff and device were able to access 5G services 97.6% of the time when their provider had 5G coverage. This was higher than the 95.7% average for 4G services and 76.6% for 3G.

• Our report shows year-on-year declines across several performance metrics, including data connection success rates. However, when performance dipped, the falls were generally not large enough to affect the user experience, and could be due to factors other than network performance. Data connection success rates fell for both 5G and 4G in 2025, down by 0.8pp and 1.5pp respectively.

MNO comparisons

• EE had the highest proportion of network connections that were on 5G, at 31.9%. Vodafone had the lowest proportion of connections on 5G (23.8%) and the highest share on 4G, at 75.7%. O2 customers had the lowest share of 4G connections (67.9%) and the highest proportion on 3G (3.3%), while Vodafone customers had the highest proportion on 2G (0.5%).

• Three had the highest average connection success rate over 5G, while Vodafone’s was the highest over 4G. However, the differences between the MNOs’ 5G and 4G data connection success rates were small – there was less than 1pp difference between the lowest and highest recorded MNO success rates for each technology.

• Across both 5G and 4G, a slightly higher proportion of EE video streams completed successfully than on the other MNOs’ networks, although the differences between EE and the lowest-performing MNOs (O2 and Three jointly over 5G, and Three on 4G) were not large, averaging around two percentage points (pp) for each technology.

• Three had the lowest (best) response time (latency) over 5G, while EE’s was the lowest over 4G. Average response times (latency) for the MNOs ranged from 15 to 21 milliseconds (ms) for 5G and from 18ms to 23ms for 4G. O2’s average response times were slightly higher than the other MNOs’ on both 5G and 4G, although they were still sufficient to give a good user experience for even the most demanding online activities.

• Three’s download speeds tended to be faster than the other MNOs’ on 5G, while EE compared well over 4G. Three had the shortest download times for 2MB, 5MB and 10MB files over 5G, followed by Vodafone, while EE was fastest across all file sizes over 4G, although these differences were quite small. O2 had the lowest proportion of connections with a 100 Mbit/s or higher download speed over both 5G (33%) and 4G (4%).

• EE had the highest proportion of upload speed tests at 20 Mbit/s or higher over both 5G and 4G (38% and 19% respectively). O2 had the lowest proportions of 5G and 4G upload speed tests at 20 Mbit/s or higher (21% and 8% respectively).

Comparisons by nation and rurality

• The proportion of connections on 5G networks continued to be higher in urban areas of the UK (29.5%) than in rural areas (18.8%). 5G’s share of connections increased in urban and rural areas, but the year-on-year difference between the two was unchanged at 10.6pp).

• Download speeds tended to be lower in rural areas than in urban areas of the UK, as evidenced by the distribution of download speeds and the download times for 2MB, 5MB and 10MB files, which were consistently faster in urban areas (although the differences were relatively small).

• There were only minor variations in file download times between the four nations of the UK, although 5G and 4G downloads in Northern Ireland and Wales tended to take slightly longer than in England and Scotland.

• At a UK level, urban connections had a higher proportion of faster connections than rural areas over 5G and 4G. Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion of download speed measurements of 50 Mbit/s or higher on both 5G and 4G, and in general, had the slowest file download times.

• Northern Ireland also had the lowest proportion of 5G upload speeds at 20 Mbit/s or higher (25%) and the highest proportion of 5G upload tests under 2 Mbit/s (20%). Over 4G, Wales had the lowest share of upload speeds of 20 Mbit/s or higher (12%) and the joint-highest share under 2 Mbit/s with Northern Ireland (both 35%). The proportion of 5G and 4G upload speed tests measured at 20 Mbit/s or more was higher in urban areas of the UK than in rural ones, while rural areas had a higher share than urban areas of speeds measured at under 2 Mbit/s.