UK Market Snapshot

May 2019

As EE become the first operator to launch its 5G network in the UK, it also leads our network performance results across the country, based on crowdsourced data collected between February and April. EE perform best for “excellent” consistent quality, network speeds and latency, with Vodafone demonstrating improved performance for download speeds and latency in Wales.

EE perform best for “excellent” consistent quality

Across the UK, EE scored 80.8% for excellent consistent quality, Tutela’s metric for network performance representative of use-cases such as streaming HD video or making reliable group video calls. Vodafone’s score of 76.4% put it in second place based on crowdsourced data collected between February and April. Although O2 and 3 scored just 69.4% and 68.2% respectively, all operators in the UK scored close to 100% for “basic” consistent quality, suitable for performing tasks like browsing web pages, internet messaging and social networking. Click here to learn more about Tutela's consistent quality metrics.

UK consistency

EE lead download and upload speeds

Averaging 23.06 Mbps across both 4G and 3G, EE continue to lead download speeds across the country. EE also performed best for the fastest average upload speeds, averaging 10.74 Mbps nationwide across both generations, and 11.92 Mbps on 4G only. Although placing second for 4G download speeds across the UK, Vodafone rank first in Wales, averaging 24.54 Mbps, inches ahead of EE at 23.96 Mbps.

UK speeds

EE also demonstrate fastest 4G latency

With an average delay of just 16.2 ms, EE also perform best for 4G latency across the country. O2 manage to tie with Vodafone, as both operators slightly improve on their results from our previous UK Mobile Experience Report, based on data collected in January. Similar to our download speed results, Vodafone also perform best for latency in Wales, averaging 17.4 ms on 4G, just ahead of second place O2 at 17.6 ms.

UK latency-1

Our findings for the UK are based on 120 billion network quality measurements including 16.8 million speed tests between February and April. Our latest complimentary Mobile Experience Report is available to download from the Tutela Insights portal.