Benchmarking firm nPerf has today published the results from their latest annual crowdsourced study into UK mobile broadband (4G, 5G) performance for the first half of 2022, which once again crowns EE as the best network operator for internet connectivity. But Three UK is starting to threaten and deliver the fastest download speeds.
The results are based off 126,479 connection tests conducted between 1st July 2021 and 30th June 2022 (including speed, web browsing and streaming tests), which were made via their dedicated mobile app (iOS, Android). The data was then aggregated to establish a performance benchmark.
The nPerf score aims to reflect the customer experience and is based on several Key Performance Indicators – download speed, upload speed, latency, streaming and browsing. As usual, there are caveats to this sort of data, such as the fact that it could be impacted by any limitations of the devices being used, and it hampers the ability to adopt a common type of hardware in order to establish a solid baseline of performance
Back in 2020 it was Vodafone that secured the highest score, although they were pushed into second place in 2021, when EE took the top spot – they’ve retained that position in 2022. However, it’s clear from the results that Three UK has been boosted by the performance of their new 5G network, which shows them starting to threaten the front-runner and securing the fastest average download speed (85.61Mbps)
By comparison, Vodafone now finds itself in third place, while O2 continues its familiar trend of delivering the lowest score of all the major UK mobile networks. A visual summary of the key results can be found below.
