VOXI 5G coverage and roll-out

Last updated 9th August, 2023

VOXI 5G is available in parts of at least 161 cities and towns across the UK at the time of writing. On top of that it’s also available in at least 240 roaming locations in parts of Europe.

VOXI originally launched its 5G service on Tuesday 29th October, 2019, and it’s run by Vodafone, meaning it also has the same 5G coverage as Vodafone. That means that as Vodafone’s 5G coverage improves, so will VOXI’s.

Below we’ve highlighted all the key places that VOXI 5G is available in, as well as detailing other aspects of its 5G network, and comparing it to the UK’s other 5G services.

VOXI 5G Summary

How does VOXI'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.

VOXI 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. 

Note however that a tick in the chart below just means a network has some coverage in a location – it might not always have much. As such, it’s always worth using a network’s official coverage checker to make sure there’s 5G where you need it.

Latest locations to get VOXI 5G

The most recent places that VOXI (through Vodafone) has brought 5G to (as of August 2023) include: Derby, Dumfries and Galloway, Durham, Halifax, Kilmarnock, Leicester, Nottingham, Oxford, Preston, Torquay, and Wakefield.

VOXI coverage checker

VOXI has an online coverage checker where you can enter your postcode or town to view coverage in your area. It shows 5G, 4G, 3G and even 2G coverage.

You should always check the 5G coverage in your area before buying a 5G phone or plan, as it’s likely to be quite limited for a long time.

CHECK VOXI’s 5G COVERAGE

4G coverage

If you’re not in a 5G coverage area then you can still use your phone on 4G or 3G with a 5G plan.

You can see an overview of VOXI’s 4G coverage and that of other networks below.

5G roaming abroad

VOXI also offers a 5G roaming service, allowing you to use 5G in at least 240 towns and cities across Italy, Spain, Germany and Ireland.

In Spain you can currently roam on 5G in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Malaga, Zaragoza, Pamplona, Bilbao, La Coruña, Vigo, Vitoria, San Sebastián, Gijón, Logroño, Santander and others.

In Italy 5G roaming is currently supported in Milan, Rome, Turin, Naples, Bologna and many more places. In Ireland you can get 5G in Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Drogheda, Dundalk, Swords and Waterford at the time of writing.

And in Germany 5G roaming is possible in a large number of places, including but not limited to Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Dortmund, Munich, Berlin, and Frankfurt.

5G network speeds

VOXI claims that its 5G speeds average 150-200Mbps and top out at around 1Gbps. That’s in line with what Vodafone has said, which makes sense, since VOXI is owned and operated by Vodafone.

And while we don’t have any real data on VOXI’s 5G speeds, we do have some on Vodafone’s, and the two are likely to be similar.

So on that front, a report from Opensignal in April 2023 found that Vodafone’s average 5G download speed was a not-especially-impressive 100.6Mbps.

Similarly, a RootMetrics report covering the second half of 2022 found that Vodafone’s median 5G download speed was 107.4Mbps. The same report found that Vodafone’s 95th percentile 5G download speed (meaning in the top 5% of speeds recorded) was 322Mbps, and its 5th percentile 5G download speed (so in the bottom 5%) was 8.1Mbps.

Before that, a 2020 RootMetrics report found a maximum 5G download speed of 545.6Mbps for Vodafone.

Elsewhere, a report from Point Topic in September 2020 found that Vodafone’s highest 5G download speed was 415Mbps. The report also found that Vodafone’s average 5G download speed was 143.6Mbps, and that its median 5G download speed was 129Mbps.

There’s also Speedtest/Ookla data from the first half of 2021, which found that Vodafone had a median download speed of 159Mbps.

All of this is a significant upgrade on Vodafone’s 4G speeds, which average 22.4Mbps according to Opensignal data from October 2020.

Latency

Latency is how long a network takes to respond to a request – so a high latency can slow things down even with seriously fast data speeds.

VOXI hasn’t yet said how low its 5G latency is, but in theory latency on 5G could ultimately be as little as around 1 millisecond (ms), down from the 30-50ms typically seen on 4G.

According to 2021 data from Ookla, Vodafone’s median 5G latency is 29ms, so better than 4G but not yet living up to 5G’s full potential.

There’s also a RootMetrics report from late 2020 which puts Vodafone’s 5G latency at 34ms in central London. Given that Vodafone owns VOXI, the latter’s latency may well be similar.

VOXI’s 5G frequency allocation

VOXI uses the same 5G frequencies as Vodafone, which at the time of writing means spectrum in the 3.4GHz and 3.6GHz bands.

Those are high frequency bands, available in high capacity. Advantages of this include them being better able to cope with lots of simultaneous users and big data demands, which is becoming ever more important as more devices are going online.

However, lower frequency spectrum like the kinds that VOXI uses for 4G and 3G can travel further, and can also more easily travel through walls and other obstacles, so both kinds have advantages.

Vodafone (and therefore VOXI) has access to 50Mhz of 3.4GHz spectrum and 40MHz of 3.6GHz spectrum, for 90MHz of 5G spectrum in total. That’s more than EE or O2 (both of which have 80MHz), but far less than Three, which has 140MHz.

The other networks (but not Vodafone/VOXI) also recently gained access to 700MHz spectrum, which we don’t tend to think of as 5G spectrum, but which may be used for 5G. If you factor that in to their 5G spectrum holdings then EE’s goes up to 120MHz, Three’s to 160MHz, and O2’s to 100MHz.

That said, there may be future 5G spectrum auctions, where Vodafone (and therefore VOXI) could gain more.