London was mid-table with 24.9Mbps. Edinburgh and Belfast’s average download speeds were 23Mbps and 22.4Mbps.
Sheffield came last in the rankings for downloads speeds at 19.9Mbps, but fourth for average upload speed with 9.8Mbps. The city with the highest average upload speed was Glasgow with 10.3Mbps. The UK’s national average 4G download speed experience score was 22.5Mbps, according to a recent Opensignal report on the global 5G opportunity, making Bristol’s over 5Mbps faster than it. Telefónica O2 proved particularly strong in the north and west, tying with EE in the North East, North West, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Yorkshire and Humber.
The U.K.’s 4G networks may be improving, but the country has some way to go before it catches up with its European neighbors. The U.K. came in 29th out of 36 European countries in our 4G download speed metric in a recent analysis of European 4G performance, and 19th in terms of 4G availability – fairly disappointing placings for the country ranked 23rd most wealthy in the world in the latest IMF GDP rankings. With one eye on the upcoming 5G spectrum auction, Ofcom is becoming increasingly vocal about the need for improvement in the country’s 4G networks. The U.K.’s operators need to maintain investment if they hope to meet this need, and the country hopes to catch up with its European peers.
