Tesco Mobile launched its 5G service on 3rd March 2020, making it the fourth MVNO to launch 5G. Its 5G service is currently available in 60 towns and cities.

It offers its 5G service via O2s spectrum and infrastructure, meaning that where that network has 5G, Tesco Mobile does too.

Thanks to O2’s publicised plans we know therefore that Tesco Mobile will have brought 5G to at least 13 additional towns and cities by the end of summer 2020.

Coverage in places with Tesco Mobile 5G isn’t initially comprehensive though, rather the network is focusing on “busy footfall areas” such as Waterloo in London. But that’s in line with rivals and you can expect coverage to improve over time.

Below you’ll find information on where will be getting 5G next, along with other details of Tesco’s 5G service.

Tesco Mobile coverage checker

You can use Tesco Mobile’s online coverage checker to see 5G, 4G, 3G and 2G coverage. Simply enter a town or postcode and it will give you a detailed picture of coverage both inside and outdoors.

Given that most places don’t have 5G coverage yet (and those that do don’t have comprehensive coverage) it’s definitely worth checking whether you have it where you live and work before shelling out on a 5G phone or 5G SIM Only plan.

CHECK COVERAGE

Which towns and cities have Tesco Mobile 5G now?

Tesco Mobile’s 5G service is currently available in all of the places above. However, as noted above its coverage won’t be comprehensive on day one, so 5G won’t be available in all parts of these towns and cities initially.

What locations will Tesco Mobile 5G roll out to next?

As Tesco Mobile has the same coverage as O2, we also know many of the places that will get 5G coverage soon after launch (by summer 2020). These are listed below.

These are the only locations that have been confirmed at the time of writing, but we’d imagine more places will also get Tesco Mobile 5G during the course of 2020.

​How does Tesco Mobile's 5G coverage compare to the other mobile networks?

There are currently 98 major towns and cities with 5G coverage from at least one UK mobile network. Tesco Mobile (via O2) currently has 5G in 46 such locations, EE in 61 such locations (along with many smaller ones), Vodafone has 29 such locations and Three offers 41 (as well as offering 5G Home Broadband in London). All of these key locations are listed below.

4G Coverage

Tesco Mobile of course still offers 4G, 3G and 2G coverage alongside 5G, and that’s a good thing too, since initially its 5G coverage will be patchy at best.

Tesco Mobile (through O2’s infrastructure and spectrum) has roughly 99% 4G population coverage, which is similar to all its UK rivals as you can see in the table below. It also has around 99% 3G and 2G population coverage.

5G Network Speeds

Neither Tesco Mobile nor O2 have said how fast their 5G network is at the time of writing, but we know that 5G speeds on most networks typically average roughly 150-250Mbps, so Tesco Mobile’s 5G speeds are likely to be similar.

In tests from Ookla in late 2019, the average 5G download speed on O2 was found to be 159.48Mbps, so Tesco Mobile’s is likely similar – though speeds may have improved since then.

However, top speeds could potentially reach or exceed 1Gbps according to some networks, though saying that, an Opensignal report from 2019 found top UK 5G speeds came in at 599Mbps.

To put all this into perspective, O2’s 4G download speeds come in at an average of just 18Mbps according to an April 2020 Opensignal report – and Tesco’s speeds are likely to be similar.

Latency

Latency is how long a mobile network takes to respond to a request before it starts transferring data. Even though it’s measured in milliseconds (ms), latency can have a noticeable impact on how fast a network feels – so the lower it is the better.

Tesco Mobile has said to expect latency of under 10ms ultimately on 5G, while 4G latency tends to be around 40-50ms. Elsewhere we’ve heard that eventually 5G could even offer latency as low as 1ms. According to late 2019 data from Ookla though, 5G latency on UK networks averages roughly 21-26ms currently.

Tesco Mobile’s 5G Spectrum

Tesco Mobile's 5G spectrum holdings (through O2) as compared to rivals can be viewed below.

O2’s spectrum, (which Tesco Mobile uses) can be seen in the chart above (credit: Three), giving a comparison to the spectrum holdings of the UK’s other major networks.

The line at 100MHz shows that this amount of contiguous 5G spectrum is needed for ‘true’ 5G according to the ITU (the global standards body on 5G technology). As such, Three is the only network that’s currently able to deliver true 5G according to the ITU’s definition. Tesco Mobile through O2 on the other hand is in joint last place along with EE and BT (which uses EE’s spectrum).

Note however that O2 (and therefore Tesco) will likely acquire more 5G spectrum from subsequent auctions, so it might not always be last here.