The latest “State of Mobile Networks” report in the UK from OpenSignal has been published, offering a clear view of how the mobile industry has evolved over the past year.
OpenSignal’s previous UK report, released six months earlier, noted that EE had surpassed 70% LTE availability. In the current report, EE is joined by O2 and Vodafone, which now also deliver LTE connectivity in more than seven out of ten tests. Three UK remains the only major operator that has not yet reached this milestone.
Although this represents notable progress in a short time, LTE coverage in the UK is still not as widespread as expected. In July, when OpenSignal released its prior “State of LTE” report, South Korea led globally with 96.38% LTE availability and the Netherlands led Europe with 86.06%.
In terms of LTE download speed, Singapore tops the global rankings with an average download speed of 45.62 Mbps, while Hungary leads Europe at 42.61 Mbps. The UK lags behind many neighbouring countries, with an average LTE download speed of 22.65 Mbps.
For this release, OpenSignal introduced an experimental metric called average peak speed, calculated by selecting the single fastest test recorded from its large community of real users. The reported peak speeds for UK operators are:
- EE: 136.1 Mbps
- Vodafone: 113.2 Mbps
- Three UK: 94.1 Mbps
- O2: 69.6 Mbps
These results suggest EE’s average peak speed is nearly double that of O2. Despite Three UK trailing in LTE availability, its peak speed keeps it well ahead of O2 by a margin of 24.5 Mbps.
OpenSignal also observed that Three UK recorded a higher average LTE speed (22.3 Mbps) than Vodafone (18.9 Mbps), which contrasts with the peak speed rankings. The researchers attribute this discrepancy largely to congestion on Vodafone’s network resulting from its larger subscriber base.
As OpenSignal explains, testers on Three’s network were often able to achieve speeds closer to the network’s peak potential, while Vodafone’s network showed strong peak capabilities that users did not consistently experience during everyday use.
For O2, the comparatively low peak speed points to more limited LTE resources, but OpenSignal notes O2 appears to manage those resources efficiently: its peak speed is roughly 4.5 times its average tested 4G speed of 15.1 Mbps. By comparison, Vodafone’s peak is about six times its average.
Three UK was originally built to prioritise 3G, and historically it has offered the fastest 3G speeds. Over the summer, however, OpenSignal found that EE now matches Three for 3G download speeds, even as EE shifts its focus toward 4G.
The report is based on 829,136,423 measurements collected between June 1, 2017 and August 31, 2017. The full report is available as a PDF from OpenSignal’s report release.
What are your thoughts on the current state of UK mobile networks? Share your views in the comments.