Virgin Mobile 5G coverage and roll-out

Last updated 9th August, 2023

Virgin Mobile uses O2’s 5G infrastructure, meaning it’s available in parts of the same 2,100+ UK towns and cities at the time of writing.

Virgin Mobile launched its 5G service on January 25^th, 2021, and it was available in 100 places on day one. Its coverage will also improve as O2’s does, so if you can’t get Virgin Mobile 5G where you are currently, you likely will be able to sooner or later.

We’ve included full details of Virgin Mobile’s 5G network below, including a list of key coverage locations, spectrum and speed details, and information on how Virgin Mobile’s 5G coverage compares to other UK networks.

Virgin Mobile 5G Summary

How does Virgin 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.

Virgin Mobile has the same number of 5G locations as O2 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. 

Note that a tick against one of the towns or cities below means a network offers some coverage there, but its coverage won’t necessarily be comprehensive. Many locations currently have quite patchy 5G coverage, but this will improve over time.

You should also be aware that buildings can affect signal, so even if there’s 5G coverage outside somewhere, it might not penetrate some buildings.

Check Virgin Mobile coverage

Latest locations to get Virgin Mobile 5G

Virgin Mobile launched its 5G service on 25/01/2021, with the latest locations since then to have got 5G including the following:

• Bromley, Canterbury, Enfield, Falkirk and Stirling, Harrow, Ilford, and Perth.

Virgin Mobile coverage checker

You can check Virgin Mobile’s coverage using its online coverage tool. This will ask you first whether you’re already a customer or whether you’re planning to buy a phone or a SIM card, then you can enter a location to get a picture of Virgin’s coverage there.

This will show you the 4G, 3G, and 2G coverage as well as 5G.

4G coverage

If you’re not in a 5G coverage area then you’ll be using 4G or 3G, and Virgin Mobile relies on O2 for that too. The company is in the confusing position of having recently switched from using Vodafone, and before that EE, but at this point all plans should be using O2’s coverage.

5G roaming

Virgin Mobile lets you roam across the EU at no extra cost, and most of these destinations also offer 5G roaming (where there’s 5G coverage). This includes in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

5G network speeds

There isn’t much data on Virgin Mobile’s 5G speeds, but O2’s infrastructure we can also look at some of the data for that network.

On that front, according to an April 2023 report from Opensignal, O2’s average 5G download speed is 75.0Mbps, which is slower than rivals.

Similarly, RootMetrics found in the second half of 2022 that O2’s median 5G download speed was 71Mbps, which is also slower than EE, Three or Vodafone. That same report found that O2’s 95^th percentile 5G download speed (in other words the speed in the top 5% that it managed) was 258.2Mbps, and that its 5^th percentile 5G download speed (so its bottom 5% one) was 5.4Mbps.

In earlier tests RootMetrics also found that O2’s highest recorded 5G download speed was 302.1Mbps.

We’ve also seen Speedtest/Ookla data from the first half of 2021, which suggested that O2’s median 5G download speed was higher at 155Mbps. Again, this is O2 we’re talking about rather than Virgin Mobile, but as the infrastructure is the same the results should be in the right ballpark.

Latency

We don’t have any data on Virgin Mobile’s 5G latency yet, but as with speeds it’s likely to be similar to O2’s, and that network had a median 5G latency of 31ms (milliseconds) according to 2021 data from Ookla.

Latency can affect the speed of a network, as it’s a measure of how long the network takes to respond to a request, and on 4G networks it tends to be in the 30-50ms range. So it looks like O2’s (and therefore likely Virgin’s) 5G latency is right at the bottom end of that, and it’s likely to get better over time.

Virgin Mobile’s 5G frequency allocation

The table above shows O2’s frequency allocation, with 5G at the top and other network types lower down. Presumably, Virgin Mobile has access to all the same frequencies, though that hasn’t been confirmed. At the very least though, its 5G access will be via the 700MHz, 3.4GHz and 3.6GHz bands.

These frequencies are what mobile signals are broadcast on, and the higher the frequency the greater the available capacity (in general), which is why the highest frequencies in that chart are used for 5G – because high capacity is vital for maintaining high speeds and reliability as data demands grow.

However, high frequency spectrum is also worse at travelling over long distances or passing through obstacles (such as walls) than lower frequencies. For that reason, some network.– including O2 - are using 700MHz spectrum for 5G too.

O2 (and therefore Virgin Mobile) has access to 40Mhz of 3.4GHz spectrum and 40MHz of 3.6GHz spectrum currently, so 80Mhz in total, putting it in line with EE. However, Vodafone has 90MHz and Three is in the lead on that front with 140Mhz of 5G spectrum. And these totals don’t include spectrum in the 700MHz band, as that’s lower frequency than we tend to think of as 5G spectrum – factor that in and O2 has 100MHz, EE has 120MHz, and Three has 160MHz, with Vodafone then trailing at 90MHz as it doesn’t have any 700MHz spectrum.