Lebara Mobile 5G Coverage

Last updated 20th July, 2023

Lebara offers 5G using Vodafone’s network, so it’s got coverage in all the same places. That means you can get Lebara 5G in parts of at least 161 UK towns and cities at the time of writing.

Lebara launched its 5G service in August 2021, and it offered partial coverage in at least 124 UK locations on day one, but as Vodafone’s 5G coverage grows, so will Lebara’s.

Below you’ll find all the information you should need on Lebara’s 5G network, including the major places where 5G is currently available, the speeds you can expect, the spectrum it has access to, and how it stacks up to the UK’s other 5G networks.

Lebara 5G Summary

How does Lebara'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.

Lebara 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. 

However, most of these locations will only have partial 5G coverage at the time of writing, so a tick in the chart below simply means that a network has some 5G coverage there, not that it will be available everywhere.

Latest locations to get Lebara 5G

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

Lebara coverage checker

You can take a look at Lebara’s 5G coverage in detail using its online coverage checker. Just enter your location for a full coverage breakdown.

Check Lebara’s 5G Coverage

4G coverage

As well as 5G coverage, Lebara also offers widespread 4G coverage, which you’ll be able to access in places that don’t yet have 5G.

Below you can see an indication of how much 4G coverage Lebara has, and how it compares to other UK networks.

5G roaming abroad

Lebara doesn’t advertise 5G roaming, but as it’s partnered with Vodafone it may one day offer this, since Vodafone does.

5G network speeds

Lebara mobile hasn’t talked about specific 5G speeds, but Vodafone claims to offer average 5G speeds of 150-200Mbps, topping out at around 1Gbps, and as Lebara uses the same infrastructure its speeds may well be similar.

We also have some independent data on Vodafone’s speeds, which points to the network having an average 5G download speed of either 100.6Mbps or 143.6Mbps (according to Opensignal and Point Topic respectively) and a median 5G download speed of between 107.4Mbps and 159Mbps (based on data from RootMetrics, Point Topic and Ookla).

Vodafone’s top speed meanwhile might be around 545.6Mbps, based on 2020 data from RootMetrics.

Finally, in the first half of 2021, RootMetrics found that Vodafone’s fastest ‘everyday 5G’ speed was 192.2Mbps. This metric uses a combination of 5G-only and ‘5G mixed mode’, which switches between 4G and 5G for the same data task. RootMetrics records speeds this way as it’s likely to better reflect real world use.

Again, this is all for Vodafone rather than Lebara, but the two are likely to have similar results.

Latency

Latency is the amount of time a network takes to respond to a data request on your phone, and Lebara hasn’t talked about this either, but based on 2021 data from Ookla, Vodafone’s median 5G latency is 29ms, which is a better result than other networks aside from EE, which it tied with.

On top of that, RootMetrics found in late 2020 that Vodafone’s 5G latency in central London was slightly higher at 34ms.

Unlike speeds, lower numbers are better here, but as with speeds, Lebara’s latency is likely to be similar to Vodafone’s.

For reference, 4G latency averages around 30-50ms most of the time, so we’re seeing slight improvements on 5G, but nothing dramatic yet – expect 5G latency to further improve over time though.

Lebara’s 5G frequency allocation

Lebara uses the same 5G frequencies as Vodafone, meaning the 3.4GHz and 3.6GHz bands, as the chart above shows.

These are higher frequency than those the network uses for 4G and 3G, because high frequency bands are key to 5G – there’s generally more capacity available, allowing for higher speeds.

However, lower frequency spectrum can travel further and more easily pass through obstacles, so that can play a role as well.

Assuming Lebara has access to all of Vodafone’s spectrum, that means it can use 50MHz of 3.4GHz spectrum and 40MHz in the 3.6GHz band, giving it 90MHz overall for 5G.

That’s slightly less than rivals, as Three has 160MHz of 5G spectrum, EE has 120MHz, and O2 has 100MHz. However, that all includes low frequency 700MHz spectrum, which is being used for 5G but doesn’t offer the speeds of the bands Vodafone is using. If you exclude that then EE and O2’s holdings drop to 80MHz, while Three’s drops to 140MHz.

Ultimately the UK’s networks are likely to gain access to addition 5G frequencies though at future 5G spectrum auctions.