RootMetrics Awards EE as the BEST UK Mobile Operator in H1 2026 Study

Mobile benchmarking firm RootMetrics (Ookla) has this morning published their H1 2026 study of UK mobile networks (calls, texts etc.) and mobile broadband (4G, 5G) speeds. The results once again name EE as the best mobile operator after they scooped up the highest scores and fastest data speeds across most categories.

Like last year this study is based on the results of over 609,000 tests, conducted by a team of testers using off-the-shelf Smartphones between January to June 2026 (drive and walk tests), to measure the real-world performance of mobile operators in the United Kingdom. But it should be said that this study is focused on the results from 16 of the UK’s largest metropolitan markets, which means that it isn’t very useful at reflecting the balance from slower rural connectivity.

The results shown below are typically split into several categories (network reliability, speed, data, call and text quality etc.) and each is assigned a score out of 100 (higher numbers = better). In terms of the UK-wide results, EE came top or shared the top spot in every single category, with Three UK being the runner-up. By comparison, O2 echoed their results in other surveys by sitting at the bottom of almost all the categories. One caveat here is that, since the merger, Three UK and Vodafone have increasingly aligned their networks and it is thus becoming harder to treat them as separate operators.

In terms of the overall results, every single mobile operator managed to improve their scores over the previous biannual study in H1 2025, with the biggest improvements once again being recorded by Three UK and O2. Otherwise, EE delivered the fastest median mobile broadband download speed of 130.3Mbps (up from 110.8Mbps last year), followed by O2 on 54.7Mbps (up from 36.2Mbps), Vodafone on 54Mbps (up from 48.4Mbps) and Three UK on 48.1Mbps (up from 45.7Mbps).

Overall Scores for H1 2026 (vs H1 2025)
1. EE – 95.6  (up from 93.2)
2. Vodafone – 88.4 (up from 85.8)
3. Three UK – 89.5 (up from 84.2)
4. O2 – 84.1 (up from 80.1)

Finally, in terms of 5G specific mobile broadband speeds, EE delivered average median download speeds of 230.8Mbps (down from 241.2Mbps), followed by Vodafone on 174.4Mbps (up from 163.8Mbps), Three UK on 158.9Mbps (down from 217.3Mbps) and then O2 on 117.3Mbps (up from 98.7Mbps).

The availability of 5G networks also continued to improve – EE led with 5G availability of 80%, followed closely by O2 at 78.0%. Three UK and Vodafone recorded similar results at 62.6% and 62.3%, respectively. Compared to 2H 2025, EE and O2 each improved their UK-wide 5G availability, while Three UK and Vodafone remained relatively stable.

However, the RootMetrics’ report only provides bits and pieces of selected information, while we would have preferred to see a bit more detail (e.g. upload performance and latency). As above, the data is also dominated by an urban focus, which gives little weighting for poorer performance in rural areas. But that is often the caveat with this type of scientific, albeit very manual, testing – there’s simply not enough data to give a complete picture of the UK.

RootMetrics UK Mobile Performance Review H1 2026
https://www.ookla.com/../rootmetrics-uk-state-of-mobile-union-1h-2026