New data from Ookla, which operates the popular Speedtest.net internet connection benchmarking service, has revealed that the United Kingdom still places near the bottom of the table in Europe for 5G mobile availability (mobile broadband) on a score of just 42.2% (i.e. the percentage of users with 5G devices spending most of their time connected to 5G networks).
By comparison, the Nordic operators have much to celebrate. In Q4 2024, Nordic countries claimed three of the top five positions in Europe for 5G Availability. Furthermore, all four Nordic countries ranked within the top ten. Denmark retained its position as Europe’s leader, achieving an impressive 5G Availability of 83.4%, narrowly surpassing Switzerland, which remains the only other European country to exceed the 80% milestone to date.
Admittedly, country-to-country comparisons are notoriously difficult things to get right, but the new results are particularly poor for a country like the UK, which was once one of the front-runners in the world for early 5G deployments and performance (at least between 2019 and 2020). Mobile operators often point to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and supply shortages, but those hit other countries too.
The reality is that the UK’s situation tends to reflect a combination of issues, such as the previous government’s U-turn to ban Huawei – this hit about a year after some operators (e.g. EE) had already started their roll-outs. Mobile operators previously warned that the decision, which also impacted existing 4G kit due to the close interdependency of their networks, could delay the completion of the 5G rollout by 2-3 years and add costs of up to £2bn across all operators.
In addition, Ofcom could have been faster to release 5G friendly spectrum and indeed they still haven’t begun the auction for a large chunk of millimetre wave (mmW) radio spectrum frequency in the 26GHz and 40GHz bands (here). This will be used by mobile operators to deliver faster 5G (mobile broadband) services in dense urban areas and some fixed wireless broadband links.
On top of that, the previous Conservative UK government was fairly lacklustre when it came to setting ambitious targets for 5G. Back in 2017 they talked about getting “the majority of the population covered by a 5G signal by 2027,” which was a very low bar and most commercial operators hit that between 2022 and 2023. However, before leaving office they did pledge for “all populated areas to be covered by ‘standalone’ 5G (5G-plus) by 2030” (here), while the new Labour government has more generally pledged to “make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030“. But solid geographic coverage targets have not been set.
Finally, mobile operators are continuing to face plenty of obstacles when building new masts and rooftop sites, particularly around the difficulty of securing planning permission in a timely and efficient fashion. But the recent merger between Vodafone and Three UK does still aspire to reach more than 99% of the UK population with their 5G Standalone (SA) network by 2034 and push fixed wireless access (mobile home broadband) to 82% of households by 2030. This may well encourage rivals to do something similar.
Perhaps we’ll do better when 6G comes along around 2028-2030.