ASDA Mobile 5G Coverage

Last updated 12th July, 2023

Asda Mobile uses Vodafone’s network for 5G coverage, meaning its 5G service is available in parts of the same 161+ 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?

We keep track of which networks offer 5G coverage across 120 major UK towns and cities, so you can see at a glance how they compare in key locations.

ASDA Mobile has the same number of 5G  locations as Vodafone below:

• O2 has launched 5G in 88 of the 120 locations below. 
• Three has launched 5G in 108 of the 120 locations below. 
• EE has launched 5G in 111 of the 120 locations below. 
• Vodafone has launched 5G in 82 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

The latest locations to get Asda Mobile 5G (via Vodafone) include:

• Derby, Dumfries and Galloway, Durham, Halifax, Kilmarnock, Leicester, Nottingham, Oxford, Preston, Torquay, and Wakefield.

Asda Mobile coverage checker

You can check Asda Mobile’s coverage using its online coverage checker. Simply enter your location for full details of 5G, 4G and 3G coverage in the area.

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 offers 5G roaming in numerous locations across Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ireland. This isn’t something that many networks yet offer, so it’s a real perk. In other locations you can roam at 4G or 3G speeds, and roaming across much of Europe is available at no extra cost.

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.

According to Opensignal data from April 2023, then, Vodafone’s average 5G download speed is 100.6Mbps, which doesn’t compare brilliantly to Three or EE, but beats O2.

Results are similar in a RootMetrics report from the second half of 2022, which recorded a median 5G download speed of 107.4Mbps. This report also found that Vodafone’s 95th percentile 5G download speed – which should be close to the max – was 322Mbps, and its 5th percentile one – which should be almost the slowest – was 8.1Mbps.

However, in older RootMetrics data from 2020, Vodafone had a top recorded 5G download speed of 545.6Mbps, which is one of the highest we’ve seen from the network.

In a Point Topic report from September 2020, 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/Ookla data from the first half of 2021, where Vodafone was found to have a 159Mbps median download speed.

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 2021 data from Ookla, Vodafone’s median 5G latency is 29ms.

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.