EE Comes Top with Vodafone Last in Mobile Phone Tests

One of the UK’s most wide-ranging tests of mobile networks show EE has come out on top with Vodafone last. RootMetrics, mobile measurement showed over 840,000 checks, which ranked operators for reliability, speed of voice, text services and data.

EE was dominated for speed and three was a close second when it came to reliability during last year’s six-month study.

O2 ranked second place in the speed index, but its consistency score was lower than EE or Three in the tests.

Every operator was rated out of 100 in a range of categories, which included; call performance, text, mobile internet, network speed, network reliability and overall performance.

Across all six categories, EE performed best with Three in second place in terms of mobile internet, network reliability and text services.

Overall Performance

Here are the overall performance numbers, out of 100; EE – 84.6; Three – 73.5; O2 – 66.5; and Vodafone – 52.4.

Vodafone was last in all categories apart from network speed, where it beat Three.

O2 came second in the network speed and call performance categories.

RootMetrics said the average speeds for networks were not given as they ranged immeasurably from area to area.

Other than the average speeds, the study didn’t offer details about the mobile hotspots and network coverage. Although, looking at coverage map will allow consumers to look at individual performance at street level.

After the results were shown, EE said ‘It gave customers everywhere in the UK the best mobile experience’, partially due to the investment in new 4G services, upgrades to 2G networks and superior 3G capacity.

Vodafone said it could not take the results of this report seriously and neither should the customers.

Evidence has suggested some of the tests were carried out in an unpredictable manner, Vodafone also adds.

Three have said the study was carried out prior to their launch of 4G at no extra cost. Therefore, is not up to speed with their current performance.

Bill Moore, RootMetric’s said the aim of this test was to get a close consumer experience as possible across a range of metrics.

This is what he told BBC; “It is all very well to test speeds, but if you can’t get on the network, then the speed becomes irrelevant.”

Additionally, all networks had the issue of dropped calls, which is a much bigger problem in the UK than in the US; where the firm also conducted tests.

Bill Moore added, “Networks here have a 2% failure rate compared to 0.5% in the US.”