Latest mobile network tests find Vodafone wanting

RootMetrics' Midyear Mobile Network Performance Report consisted of more than 920,000 tests to come to its comprehensive findings.

"During our testing in the first half of 2014, we drove more than 25,000 miles while testing performance in towns, villages, and cities across the UK," said RootMetrics. "To put that in perspective, that's the equivalent of driving from Land's End to John O' Groats 28 times."

In addition, RootMetrics "tested performance while driving, at stationary outdoor locations, and at more than 1,200 indoor locations".

Tests were done across call performance, text reliability, network speed, coverage, and mobile internet categories using crowd-testing of actual users with 'real world' results that best demonstrate user experiences.

The results found that all of the networks show improvement over last year.

The network formed through a partnership between T-Mobile and Orange, EE, was ranked first followed by Three and O2. Vodafone finished in last place. In most of the categories it was a close call between the networks but mobile Internet performance proved to be the clincher.

Out of a ranking of 100, EE came first in mobile Internet performance scoring 85.5. Three came second with 82.7. Both of those networks were way ahead of O2 (68.1) and Vodafone (67.0). Of note is that both the top scoring networks have the biggest LTE rollouts to date.

Earlier this month, Ofcom also reported disappointing statistics for Vodafone, also based on data provided by RootMetrics and from the mobile networks. Vodafone was found to have the worst reception in the UK. While 92.6% of calls were connected successfully in urban regions, just 79.9% were successful in rural areas. EE also came out on top in Ofcom's results with 97% of calls connecting successfully in urban areas and 93.7% in rural areas.

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Tags: mobile, network, UK