Scre-EE-m if you wanna go faster: BT's mobile network reigns supreme in UK-wide speed and latency tests
- Reference: 1601022609
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/25/ee_tutela_report/
- Source link:
Overall, the BT-owned network ranked top in a bevy of categories, including median download speed, upload speed, and overall coverage.
EE also beat the competition in the "Excellent Consistent Quality" category, which looks at how often users could perform relatively challenging tasks such as streaming 1080p video or taking part in HD video chats.
Competition to EE's crown comes from Vodafone, which scored top marks in the "Core Consistent Quality" category. This metric examines how often users were able to perform simple tasks, such as watching standard-definition streaming video, using social media, or browsing the web. It's also more indicative of how people use their phones. Not everyone wants to watch Game of Thrones in full 1080p glory while they commute, but plenty kill time by reading the news or checking Twitter.
TalkTalk, Three, and Virgin Media, come on down! You've all won a prize for... not being that great at something! [2]READ MORE
There's some nuance to be observed here. While Vodafone ranked top on Core Consistent Quality across all of the UK's four home nations, when you take a granular look at how the networks rank for "Excellent" quality, things are a bit more muddled.
For high-definition content consumption, EE ranked top in England and Northern Ireland, but tied with Vodafone in Scotland. Vodafone also came first in Wales.
Three fared worst out of the bunch, coming dead-last in several key areas. It had the slowest median download speed and the slowest median latency at 18.2ms. This is a full 7ms slower than EE, which had a median of 11.2ms. Upload speeds were slightly better, coming ahead of O2, but behind Vodafone and EE.
Tutela attributed this poor performance to the network's comparatively limited 5G and LTE coverage, which forces customers onto 3G. Three customers spend nearly 22.9 per cent of their time on 3G, compared to 10.4 per cent and 13.6 per cent on EE and Vodafone respectively. ®
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[1] https://www.tutela.com/hubfs/Assets/UK%20State%20of%20Mobile%20Experience%20Report%20-%20September%202020.pdf
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/21/ofcom_customer_audit/
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Very skewed results
I was always told that statistics are like watching a beautiful woman on a beach in a swimsuit: while there is plenty on show the bits that you really want to see are still hidden from you.
Still very poor
UK lags far behind many third world countries in 4G speeds, that I have visited and tested. Could get much better 4G (and consistent) speeds in places such as Tunisia, greece & islands, Thailand, Spain, Mexico etc.
All the hot air about 5G and great speeds is pure willy waving by the networks for brownie points. Ground reality is shameful. Try getting any signals on Oxford street on Three network !
They need to satisfy their shareholders first, before comitting any further spending on infrastructure improvements.
Re: Still very poor
So why don't you tell us which third world countries you've been to?
I have been to Lao PDR and can confirm that their 4g network is superb.
Backhaul
Is this not more down to the backhaul setup rather than the mobile network?
4G equipment setups must be similar if not the same across all the providers so if you can get a signal then the data rate is down to the link they have to the internet or device contention to a mast
Two other metrics ...
that are important with mobile networks:
* coverage - how many not-spots ?
* uptime - how few are the times when the network fails or degrades ?
Very skewed results
Whilst you can prove anything with statistics, the metrics employed are not consistent. eg. If they included 5G in the analysis and added to the average, EE wins hands down. But then, how many of the test subjects were using 5G for this? Versus how many of them were using 4G or 3G ? WHat statistics were included for the other operators? Questions, questions...ad infinitum.
Whilst I agree EE has the better coverage, it is not a reflections of the very poor UK wide pathetic state of mobile data speeds, overall.