The latest UK Mobile Performance Review from RootMetrics finds that EE remains the operator to beat.
EE secured first place across all seven of RootMetrics’ performance categories: Overall Performance, Reliability, Accessibility, Speed, Data, Call, and Text. The operator claimed 109 of 112 RootScore Awards across major metropolitan areas.
Patrick Linder, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at RootMetrics, commented:
“As the UK’s hunger for data continues to increase, fast and reliable mobile connectivity has never been more important. EE remained the operator to beat in our second-half 2021 testing, but competition is increasing, with all major operators showing improvement since the first half of 2021. That’s great news for consumers, as greater competition tends to lead to a cycle of even better performance and further innovation.”
Vodafone remains EE’s closest rival, tying with EE for call performance and ranking second in the other six categories.
Three and Virgin Media O2 continue to trail the leaders, though both operators shared second place with Vodafone for text performance.
EE was the only operator to record a median download speed above 100 Mbps, achieving an impressive 114.9 Mbps in Nottingham.
On 5G, EE recorded median download speeds above 100 Mbps in every city tested.
Vodafone also posted strong speeds: it achieved median download speeds over 50 Mbps in four cities and did not record a median below 20 Mbps in any tested city.
Vodafone’s 5G performance was robust as well, joining EE in registering median download speeds above 100 Mbps across all tested cities.
While EE and Vodafone remain the clear performance leaders, Three and Virgin Media O2 have both made noticeable progress, though they are not yet a major threat to the top two.
Three made solid gains in the latest tests: it registered median speeds exceeding 30 Mbps in four more cities than in the first half of 2021 and reduced the number of cities with speeds below 20 Mbps by two.
Three’s 5G service improved substantially, with better availability and faster speeds in nearly every city tested. The operator nearly doubled the number of cities where it delivered 5G median speeds above 100 Mbps.
Virgin Media O2 also improved. Although its median download speeds mostly sit in the 20–30 Mbps range, the operator increased the number of cities where it offers at least 20 Mbps and no longer recorded any median speeds below 10 Mbps.
Virgin Media O2’s 5G availability rose across nearly all tested cities, and it registered a peak speed of 169.2 Mbps in Glasgow.
Virgin Media O2 has also tried to differentiate through customer incentives: earlier this month the operator announced it will not reinstate EU roaming fees, a move that drew notable attention.
(Photo by Mitya Ivanov on Unsplash)
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