Streetwave UK Find Peak Time Gaps in Southwark’s Mobile Broadband Capacity
Network analyst firm Streetwave has today shared the results from a recent study they conducted, which tested the mobile broadband coverage and speed of 4G and 5G networks (EE, Three UK, Vodafone and O2) in the Central London district of Southwark. The results found performance drops significantly at high footfall locations during peak times.
Just to recap. Streetwave works by harnessing waste (bin / refuse) collection trucks to map mobile network coverage and speeds across various parts of the UK (e.g. here, here, here, here and here). In this setup, refuse trucks are installed with several off-the-shelf Smartphones using special software, which run continuous network tests (once every 20 metres in rural areas and 5m in urban areas) as the vehicles go around their routes.
The data they collect is often then used by local authorities to help identify areas that may require additional intervention in order to improve local mobile coverage and or network capacity, while also giving locals access to some of this data via address-based coverage checkers and interactive maps (https://app.streetwave.co/coverage-checker/southwark).
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The latest study in Southwark (based on data collected between 9th and 22nd December 2025), which was carried out in partnership with Southwark Council, found that EE leads the borough with the highest Essential Coverage at 98%, followed by Three UK and Vodafone at 94% and O2 on 89%. But this dropped “significantly” at high footfall locations during peak times, with O2 falling to just 41% in Dulwich Village during peak weekend shopping.
However, the results varied considerably between locations, with Borough Market seeing stronger performance across operators than Dulwich Village. The results reveal an important distinction between mobile coverage and mobile capacity (performance). “While borough-wide scores are strong, performance at busy locations during peak times tells a more complex story,” said the report.
Southwark’s Essential Coverage Scores
| Operator | Essential Coverage |
| EE | 98% |
| Three UK | 94% |
| Vodafone | 94% |
| O2 | 89% |
Dulwich Village – Peak Weekend Shopping (Essential Coverage)
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| Operator | Essential Coverage |
| EE | 83% |
| Vodafone | 74% |
| Three UK | 66% |
| O2 | 41% |
Borough Market – Peak Weekend Shopping (Essential Coverage)
| Operator | Essential Coverage |
| EE | 99% |
| O2 | 86% |
| Vodafone | 84% |
| Three UK | 54% |
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.
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Oof O2 is looking quite poor with the Borough Market ratings. If EE performed the best and I still have a little trouble with reliability when I was last there (on a busy sunny Saturday) then I can’t imagine how it’s actually like using O2
Dulwich village and peak weekend shopping aren’t 2 things I would put together. It’s not exactly the hub of commercial activity round there.
Good point. At the same time, networks are terrible in that area, so if this brings some attention to the problem, I’m fine with it.
Tried O2 in W6, at work.. got download at 1.2 and upload at 0.6 Mbits….