What is the fastest phone network in central London?

"But now there might be a way to avoid being confronted with the loading wheel of doom when visiting central London. A new study has revealed exactly which mobile networks in the centre of town have the fastest and the slowest internet download speeds. And the answer might not be what you'd expect. The research saw mobile data firm PolicyTracker carry out tens of thousands of mobile connection speed tests across the UK earlier this year."

"First, we need to explain how it works. In Britain there are four 'real' phone network operators: Vodafone, EE, O2, and Three. These operators then lease their spare capacity to 'virtual' networks, which piggyback off their signal, and are usually cheaper. These are the providers like Lebara (Vodafone), iD Mobile (Three), Giffgaff (O2) and Lycamobile (EE). In the tests, PolicyTracker found that Lebara was able to download data quicker than its parent network Vodafone, while charging 70 percent less."

"Lycamobile also outperformed its parent network EE, also with much cheaper prices. Out of all the parent and virtual networks, Three had the overall fastest download speed, followed by Lebara and then iD. However, when it came to simply getting signal, the parent networks mostly performed better. Vodafone and EE had the lowest proportion of failed speed tests (when they couldn't connect to any signal), while the highest proportion of failed tests went to Three, followed by Lebara."

PolicyTracker carried out tens of thousands of mobile connection speed tests across the UK earlier this year and shared capital findings with London Centric. In central London, some virtual mobile providers delivered faster download speeds than their parent operators. Lebara outdownloaded Vodafone while charging about 70 percent less, and Lycamobile outperformed EE at lower cost. Overall fastest download speeds came from Three, then Lebara, then iD. Parent networks generally had fewer failed connections; Vodafone and EE had the lowest proportion of failed speed tests, while Three and Lebara recorded the highest proportions. Network mergers and 5G standalone rollout could change these patterns.

Read at Time Out London