umlaut report: Vodafone has London’s best 5G network

Vodafone wins on YouTube and download speeds, but EE has better upload speeds

Vodafone has the best 5G performance in London, according to new research from global consultancy and testing company umlaut.

The German company carried out a drive test in June for all four networks, commissioned by Vodafone, across an area of the city that corresponds to about 4.5 million people, or 55 per cent of London’s total population. It used a Samsung Galaxy S10 for the test.

It found that Vodafone gave 99.7 per cent reliability when using YouTube on 5G, and 100 per cent reliability for web browsing. EE, Vodafone’s nearest competitor, scored 94.5 per cent and 97.6 per cent respectively in these categories.

Vodafone was also the most reliable for file download and upload speeds, with the quickest download speed for the first 500KB of a file. It also had the fastest average download speed over 5G, with 215.2Mbps, followed by EE with 182.8Mbps.

However, EE had a faster average upload speed, with 32.3Mbps compared to Vodafone’s 29.5Mbps. Additionally, EE is likely to have a more widespread 5G coverage than Vodafone, as it has been rolling out the service for longer. This is evidenced by a comparison between the two networks’ 5G coverage checkers.

Vodafone’s consumer director Max Taylor said: “The results from this report show that our customers are getting the best 5G experience and that our investment in our network is really paying off.

“In London, our network is the most reliable, and is delivering on the promise of 5G download speeds. Every day we’re bringing this great 5G experience to more customers around the UK.

At the beginning of this year, umlaut named EE as its ‘Best in Test’ operator in the UK, following drive and walk tests across 21 cities and 29 towns in the UK. These tests accounted for 17 million people, approximately 27 per cent of the population. However, umlaut found that Vodafone performed slightly better than EE in London.