Asda Mobile uses Vodafone’s network for 5G coverage, meaning its 5G service is available in parts of the same 100 UK towns and cities at the time of writing.

Asda Mobile launched its 5G service on March 30^th, 2021, and it was available in 100 UK locations immediately, as it benefitted from all the time Vodafone had already spent expanding its 5G coverage.

Below you’ll find full details of Asda Mobile’s 5G network, including the key places that it has 5G available in, the spectrum that it has access to, and how it compares to other networks.

Asda Mobile 5G Summary

How does Asda Mobile's 5G coverage compare to others?

Across the UK we track 5G coverage in 120 major towns and cities. Within those the major networks stack up as follows:

• O2 has launched 5G in 75 of the 120 locations below. 
• Three has launched 5G in 82 of the 120 locations below. 
• EE has launched 5G in 75 of the 120 locations below. 
• Vodafone (and therefore Asda) has launched 5G in 44 of the 120 locations below. 

It’s worth noting though that there won’t necessarily be 5G everywhere in these locations. A tick in the chart just means that a network reports having some coverage there, so make sure to check the places that matter to you on a network’s official coverage checker to be sure whether you’ll get 5G.

Latest locations to get Asda Mobile 5G

Asda Mobile switched on its 5G network at the end of March 2021, so at the time of writing every location counts as a new one – there are 100 in total, and it’s all the same places as Vodafone.

Asda Mobile coverage checker

You can check Asda Mobile’s coverage using its online coverage checker. Note that to view 5G coverage you’ll need to click the ‘Vodafone coverage’ button at the top, then simply enter your location.

Check Asda’S 5G Coverage

4G coverage

While 5G coverage is still limited (but rapidly improving), Asda Mobile has widespread 4G coverage, which you’ll be able to make use of even on a 5G plan.

You can see an overview of its 4G coverage as well as that of other networks below.

5G roaming abroad

Asda Mobile doesn’t currently advertise 5G roaming, however it’s possible that it may offer it one day – especially as its network partner Vodafone does. In fact, at the time of writing only Vodafone and VOXI (which is owned by Vodafone) offer 5G roaming.

On Asda Mobile you can still roam for free across much of Europe at lower speeds though.

5G network speeds

Asda Mobile has said to expect 5G speeds of around 150Mbps on its fastest unlimited data plans. Presumably, those same speeds can be expected on all its other 5G plans aside from those that are listed as capped at a lower level.

While we don’t have any real world data on Asda Mobile’s speeds yet, we do have some on Vodafone’s, which may well be similar, since they share infrastructure and spectrum.

In a Point Topic report from September 2020 then, Vodafone was found to have a top 5G speed of 415Mbps. Its average 5G download speed meanwhile was found to be 143.6Mbps, which is in line with what Asda claims to offer, and its median 5G download speed was found to be 129Mbps.

We also have Speedtest data from the third quarter of 2020, where Vodafone was found to have a 152.17Mbps median download speed.

Then there’s RootMetrics data, which found in the first half of 2021 that Vodafone had a 153.2Mbps median 5G download speed, and found in 2020 that Vodafone’s top recorded speed was 545.6Mbps.

In another report from the first half of 2021, RootMetrics also recorded a fastest ‘everyday 5G’ speed of 192.2Mbps for Vodafone. This speed was captured using a mix of 5G-only and ‘5G mixed mode’, which switches between 4G and 5G for the same data task, to better reflect real world use.

Latency

Asda Mobile hasn’t talked about its latency (the amount of time the network takes to respond to a data request on your phone), but based on late 2019 data from Ookla, 5G latency on UK networks averages between 21-26ms.

Elsewhere, RootMetrics in late 2020 found that Vodafone’s 5G latency in central London was 34ms - so Asda Mobile’s might be similar, since it uses Vodafone’s infrastructure.

In any case, it should be better than 4G latency, which averages around 30-50ms most of the time, and that’s a good thing, as a high latency can make the network feel slow, even with speedy data.

Asda Mobile’s 5G frequency allocation

Asda Mobile uses Vodafone’s 5G frequencies, which is what you can see in the table above.

As you can see then, it’s the 3.6GHz and 3.4GHz ones that the network uses for 5G.

These are both higher frequencies than those the network uses for 4G and 3G, and that’s because higher frequency bands are available in greater capacity, which helps them deal with large numbers of users at the same time and larger data requirements – things that 5G networks are having to cope with.

The lower frequency spectrum though is better at travelling long distances, and at passing through walls. As such, both kinds can be important to a well-rounded network.

Asda Mobile presumably has access to all of Vodafone’s 5G spectrum (though it hasn’t specified), in which case it can leverage 50MHz of 3.4GHz spectrum and 40MHz of 3.6GHz spectrum, so 90MHz of 5G spectrum overall.

EE and O2 in comparison have a slightly lesser 80MHz, while Three has 140MHz of 5G spectrum.

It’s worth noting also that EE, O2 and Three additionally have access to some 700MHz spectrum, which might end up getting used for 5G, despite being low frequency. If it does, then that brings EE’s 5G spectrum up to 120MHz, Three’s up to 160MHz, and O2’s up to 100MHz.

While these spectrum holdings probably won’t change for a while, they may eventually, with more 5G spectrum auctions potentially taking place in the future.