Study ranks London among worst cities in the UK for mobile signal
16 Mar 2016
A new study has ranked London among one of the worst cities in the UK for mobile signal while Manchester had taken the top spot.
The mobile performance tests were conducted by independent mobile analytics firm RootMetrics, in a survey of the mobile signal in the UK's major cities. The quality of the mobile signal was assessed on the basis of speed, reliability of phone calls, texts and mobile internet.
Phone signals from four popular networks - EE, O2, Three, and Vodafone were considered. Each city was then assigned a score, weighted on the basis of estimated subscribers for each carrier.
Of the 16 biggest urban areas in the UK, London was placed 13th with a score of 90.1, bettering only Bristol, Cardiff and Hull, which stood at the bottom of the table with scores of 87.1, 79.2 and 77.9 respectively.
Manchester with 95.4 was the clear winner, while Birmingham and Liverpool trailed in second and third place, with scores of 94.6 and 94.5.
According to Scott Stonham, RootMetrics' European general manager, London might just be too big for a reliable mobile network.
"Providing a good mobile coverage in London is always going to be difficult due to the density of the population, the architecture and changes in demand on capacity," he said, The Independent reported.
The full results are as follows:
- Manchester – 95.4
- Birmingham – 94.6
- Liverpool – 94.5
- Coventry – 94.3
- Belfast – 93.5
- Sheffield – 93.0
- Nottingham – 92.6
- Leicester – 92.2
- Edinburgh 91.9
- Leeds & Bradford – 91.8
- Glasgow – 90.7
- Newcastle – 90.6
- London – 90.1
- Bristol – 87.1
- Cardiff – 79.2
- Hull – 77.9
According to commentators, though, it was worth remembering that there were plenty of other towns and cities that likely had worse signal than all of the areas tested by RootMetrics.
Nevertheless, the locations in the study made up the UK's 16 most populous Larger Urban Zones, so it was not a bad measure for how UK consumers fared in terms of their phone signal.
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