You might expect London to lead the way when it comes to 5G performance in the UK, but surprisingly the opposite seems to be the case.
According to research from Ookla, median 5G download speeds in London are around 115Mbps, making it tied with Belfast for last place among the UK’s major cities. The leader here is Glasgow, with a median 5G download speed of 184.99Mbps.
Londoners also find themselves in signal not-spots more often than residents and visitors to other cities. 0.7% of Londoners spent the majority of their time without signal, which is worse than the UK’s other cities, and more than twice as bad as the likes of Belfast, Bristol, and Sheffield, where it was just 0.3% of residents.
And it’s not just these outliers who struggle for signal. The national average for percentage of time spent without signal is 1.54%, but the figure in London is 2.6%.
It’s not all bad news for London though, as the city has taken the lead for 5G availability among major UK cities. And of course, while London might be underperforming in many ways, lots of other UK cities are excelling for 5G performance.
Unusual but not unsolvable
Still, this is a surprising situation, and one that’s unique across Western Europe, as in other countries the capital city doesn’t lag behind all the other major cities.
So why has this happened? Ookla notes that the height of buildings in London and the materials used makes them more hostile to mobile signals, meaning signals can’t pass as freely through the city as most others. Getting access to sites in London to install infrastructure could also be trickier than in some cities.
Still, the situation in London could be turned around. Ookla notes that in Glasgow – which leads major UK cities for median 5G speeds – there’s a dedicated ‘Telecoms Unit’, which streamlined the whole process of installing 5G infrastructure in the city. It was one of the first UK cities to have such a unit, so it has seemingly taken 5G seriously since day one. If London starts doing the same, we might someday see a very different report.
