United Kingdom

The 2019 mobile network test in the United Kingdom

For the sixth time, we have have conducted our definitive benchmark of the UK‘s mobile networks together with our partner connect. Once again, we have enhanced the underlying methodology.

The overall winner of the 2019 umlaut connect Mobile Benchmark in the UK is EE – for the sixth time (in 2016, EE shared the first place with Vodafone). EE‘s lead over the second-placed Vodafone is close in the voice discipline, but more distinct in the data and crowdsourcing categories. Overall, EE defends its position and deserves the grade very good. As in 2017 and 2018, Vodafone holds the second place and shows a good performance level. The operator shows a distinct score distance to the thirdplaced contender, which separates the UK market into two stronger and two less powerful providers. On the lower ranks, we see a swap of places: O2 manages to overtake Three and reach the third place, outperforming the Hutchison brand in all disciplines of our Benchmark and achieving the overall grade satisfactory. This is also confirmed by a distinct improvement especially in the Crowd score. Three ranks last, falling below its performance levels from our previous Benchmark and achieving the overall grade sufficient. However, this operator shows some improvements in the results of our crowdsoucing.

Results

Single Review

EE
As in our previous UK Benchmarks, EE is the overall winner. The largest operator in the UK manages to hold its high performance levels and scores best in all three disciplines of our evaluation: voice, data and crowdsourcing. For this convincing result, EE is awarded the overall grade very good.

Vodafone
Vodafone defends the second place which it has been holding since 2017, after having scored on a par with EE in 2016. In comparison to last year‘s results, Vodafone managed to improve considerably in the voice and crowd disciplines, and also somewhat in the data discipline. This performance results in a solid good grading.

O2
The second largest UK operator managed to advance its way to the third place by improving over last year‘s results especially in the crowd discipline. In our 2019 Benchmark, O2 outperforms Three in each category, achieving the grade satisfactory. In the Crowd score, O2 is even a little stronger than Vodafone.

Three
The smallest UK operator ranks last this time, but shows some strength in the assessment of voice calls in smaller towns and on the roads. However, in our walk tests and drive tests Three scored overall lower than in the previous year, resulting in a place swap with O2 and the overall grade sufficient.

Testing area

The 2019 umlaut connect Mobile Benchmark in the UK consists of drive tests and walk tests conducted in November 2019. Four drive test cars together covered about 10,700 kilometres, visiting 21 cities and 29 towns. Additionally, two walk test teams visited ten cities and travelled on trains between them. The test areas account for 17 million people, or approx. 27 percent of the total population of the UK. In addition, the results of extensive crowdsourcing analysis, considering 24 weeks from early June to mid-November 2019 are included in the score.

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