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If you want to be on the best 5G network possible then – according to RootMetrics – you should be choosing either EE or Three, as they are currently neck-and-neck when it comes to delivering the best 5G experience in the UK.
That’s based on data collected during the first half of 2022, in which it found that Three offered the highest 5G median download speed, at almost 200Mbps. EE was quite a lot lower at around 150Mps, while Vodafone was lower still at approximately 130Mbps, and O2 was bottom of the heap at 110Mbps.
RootMetrics notes that Three was helped here by “stellar” 95th percentile 5G speeds. Those are the top 5% of its speeds, so essentially its highest speeds, which sadly aren’t specifically listed here.
EE conversely excelled when it came to 5th percentile 5G speeds – those which are achieved or exceeded 95% of the time. Its 5th percentile 5G download speeds were almost 30Mbps, which doesn’t sound like much but it’s over twice as fast as any other network’s 5th percentile 5G speeds, and the vast majority of the time speeds will be much higher.
Equal on availability
Both EE and Three meanwhile have 5G availability of almost 50% across the UK according to this data, which is broadly in line with what each network has claimed, with EE announcing it had exceeded 50% UK population coverage with 5G back in May, and Three saying it had hit 56% in July.
O2 and Vodafone meanwhile are both at around 35% according to RootMetrics, so they’ve got some catching up to do.
Finally, while all four networks delivered outstanding data reliability on 5G, none particularly excelled for latency. Three’s was lowest in these tests at just over 40ms across the UK, but that’s in line with 4G latency. RootMetrics notes that the low latency promises of 5G won’t be fully realised until standalone 5G networks become the norm, where currently 5G networks fall back onto 4G and its infrastructure.
RootMetrics also carried out a lot of other network tests beyond the 5G ones in this period, and for these EE generally came out on top, ranking first for overall performance, reliability, combined speeds, and data, call, and text performance. So while Three is a strong 5G rival, EE looks to be the most well-rounded network overall, at least going by these tests.
