EE dominates mobile market as fastest network provider

EE high street shop entrance with shoppers passing by
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

EE has been crowned the fastest mobile network in a recent report by Opensignal, also winning all five of the company's national awards, and two-thirds of its regional accolades.

Out of the UK's four leading operators - Vodafone, O2, Three and EE - the youngest mobile company won the prize for 4G availability, video experience, download speed experience, upload experience and latency nationwide.

In the availability category, the provider was found to cover 90% of the UK, with second-place O2 achieving 84% coverage. Three fared worst-off, with only 76% of the UK covered by its 4G network.

Vodafone and EE achieved almost identical scores in the video experience category, however, EE was given the edge thanks to higher overall network availability, despite Vodafone's excellent performance in the 3G streaming stakes.

Although EE didn't quite reach the 30Mbps mark for download speeds, it wasn't far off at all, and Opensignal expects it to reach the milestone in the next year, marking it the best of the bunch. Both downloads and upload speeds were 20% higher than rivals, increasing by a few Mbps compared to last year's results.

In regional categories, EE took the award in 40 out of the available 60, only being eclipsed in the video category in London. Its speeds were highest in the capital city too, reaching an impressive 34.9Mbps.

However, it seems this was a bit of an anomaly and when measuring 4G speeds across the UK, as London didn't fare as well as other regions, particularly in Bristol, Cardiff and Birmingham, with speedier connections across all providers.

Clare Hopping
Freelance writer

Clare is the founder of Blue Cactus Digital, a digital marketing company that helps ethical and sustainability-focused businesses grow their customer base.

Prior to becoming a marketer, Clare was a journalist, working at a range of mobile device-focused outlets including Know Your Mobile before moving into freelance life.

As a freelance writer, she drew on her expertise in mobility to write features and guides for ITPro, as well as regularly writing news stories on a wide range of topics.