London is bottom in Europe for 5G, while Europe lags the rest of the world

London is bottom of the table when it comes to 5G mobile service, according to a report gauging major European cities on the overall quality of user experience. And, Europe itself lags behind other regions in 5G SA deployment. The report on quality of experience comes from MedUX, a firm specializing in network testing and …

[aidanstevens]

What did the X axis on the graph do to offend the author?

[mtp]

Came here to say the same. It implies that Stockholm is about 5 times better than London (X=0 on the left) but it might be 5% better - you just can't tell from this graph.

[Jimmy2Cows]

X axis probably doesn't start at zero. If I were being charitable I'd say to to show more detail in the differences. But it's more likely a typical click-bait con to make a small relative difference seem huge.

[steelpillow]

Roll on 6G, I say

Round here, I'd be happy if I could guarantee 4G level of LTE and not the 3G+LTE abortion.

Nor do I wish to install expensive repeaters all over the place when 5G does arrive.

The main impact of vapid 5G promises is to stall 4G rollout. Grr!

[Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese]

Re: Roll on 6G, I say

Count yourself lucky you can fall back to 3G. Here there's no 3G so when 4G drops out, it's down to GPRS and basically no modern websites or apps are operable over such a relatively narrow bandwidth connection.

[PCScreenOnly]

Makes it far easier to show 6G is faster than 5G

Only because we have shit 5G and not technical limitations

Where is Ofcom and why are they not beating the telco's up about how bad it is in the UK (coverage) and why the faster speeds are so.... lacking

Oh yeah, sitting in telco pockets

[lsces]

Does 5G actually exist?

Being tied into a contract with Vodafone for unlimited 5G broadband and in an area where Vodafone advertise 5G I have yet to even see a reliable 4G connection and when that is working it's pig slow! I'm having to pay for fibre as well and can't get out of the useless mobile one for another 17 months! Worcestershire County Council are currently investigating the large number of complaints about all mobile providers around here.

[IGotOut]

Re: Does 5G actually exist?

Come to Shropshire where you get cracking 4g in a country park, but barely get a signal a mile down the road on the village high st.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Does 5G actually exist?

Sounds like a breach of contract. See you in court, and lodge a complaint with the useless fuckers at Ofcom.

[Locomotion69]

This is not a surprise

As Chinese tech is forbidden in these networks, it has to be bought elsewhere, meaning bigger lead times, less competetion and therefore higher prices.

We will get 5G much later than others, for more money and less coverage.

[Blackjack]

[Android devices sometimes say '5G' when connecting to 4G] I am so glad I stuck with my 4G phone then. The thing runs on WiFi 90% of the time anyway so why bother to upgrade until the Apps I need no longer run in the version of Android I have in my phone?

[sanmigueelbeer]

I don't care about 3G.

I don't care about 4G.

I don't care about 5G.

And I do not give a f**ck about 6G.

What I do care, however, is able to make a mobile/cellular call while I am inside my residence in the middle of town (without resorting to go to the footpath just to take/make a call). Is that too much to ask?

[Justthefacts]

Most broadband providers have packages which provide cellular-over-WiFi in your home. And it’s even usually cheaper overall, because no phone charges. Is there a reason that doesn’t work?

[sanmigueelbeer]

We do not have packages like that in Australia.

[DS999]

Does your phone to offer wifi calling? iPhones do and I would be willing to bet heavily that all Androids (except maybe stuff that's pushing a decade old now) do as well. Enable that, and you won't care whether you have bars at home or not.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't depend only on the phone. As you noted, recent phones support it. But your operator must have the feature enabled AND have the phone manufacturer make sure the specific model works with them (I've assumed but not checked that there's some public key deployment going on).

When I bought my current phone, I checked very carefully that it was on my phone company's compatibility list. I'm sure it's easier now.

[DS999]

Are there really any carriers that don't support it on pretty much every phone made in the last 5 or 6 years?

AFAIK if the phone supports VoLTE it also supports wifi calling.

[elbisivni]

Telstra, Optus and Vodafone all offer such packages in Australia, as do a number of MVNOs who use their networks. I have one myself, and am paying for two more (for the tiny terrors, who are not actually tiny at all anymore).

https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/what-is-WiFi-calling

[Johnb89]

Wifi calling doesn't work, in my experience

My experience with wifi calling, on good broadband, is that it doesn't work at all well, particularly with regards to latency.

One person I regularly call uses wifi calling at their end. Hopeless. If we talk on whatsapp its fine. Yes, I appreciate that my end is different in those cases too... but I make mobile calls all day and its only the wifi calling ones that have problems.

[Johnb89]

It can be done

I'm currently in <back of beyond, beach island in Asia> and can consistently stream HD on youtube via my phone hotspot on 4 bars of 5G, pretty much anywhere in the country. When it does drop to 4G I can speedtest upwards of 40 Mbps. There is rampant competition and advertising here for the mobile networks, which can't hurt the quality of service.

Planning restrictions aren't a thing here though, let alone safe water or food hygiene, so good mobile service isn't a function of money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It can be done

Glad to hear it's so good there. I'm in the southeast US, living in a well-populated suburb, and I'm doing well to have consistent 40 Mbps on my home internet access. Not anywhere near enough competition.

[Giantgreenhogweed]

Major European cities

No disrespect to the people of Porto but since when was it a major European city? What about Amsterdam, Warsaw, Zurich, Athens... etc. This feels more like a select list that ensures London finishes bottom.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surprised London's at the bottom of the pile

The UK is a country where a lot of things work poorly and private companies rule the roost, with max cash extraction for private owners the aim.

Here's some real life examples I've encountered recently:

Royal Mail...hike up the prices for stamps, can't even deliver mail reliably X amount of times per week. Yes, I know stop delivering my letters to another apartment, so that my bank blocks my account. The address is written correctly on the damn envelope and has been for 10+ years, it's just that your service has got shite/you have employed poor employees who are incompetent at their job, or you have made it so shit for them to do basic tasks.

Rail...you want how much for a train ticket to London to get to the office (insert any other location here). Oh, and we cut the service frequency, and also can't introduce our new trains just yet, leaving you to roll around on some 80s vintage with no modern facilities - heating, charging or toilets on board.

Water...sorry we need to hike your bill by 42% because we paid our execs too much and there's an IOU note in the safe to replace all the busted Victorian pipework.

Various mobile phone companies...look here's the shiny new 5G, it's barely available, but we'll kill 3G and overload the 4G so it's dog slow and you get cut off calls when you walk indoors, or make it fall back to 2G, hey you remember dialup right?! Also have a few extra quid on your bill every year which goes up with inflation (it never was a thing).

Broadband...no FTTP in your area yet sir, but please renew our crap FTTC service. No we don't have any idea of when you'll get FTTP. Also, have a doubling of the amount in which you pay for the contract because you've come to the end of your contract (hahaha did you read the terms, fool, buried in paragraph 56, subsection 3, point 8?), and we'll hike the cost of the line rental by £3 every year, and lock you into a 2 year contract. Kthxbai.

It would be interesting to see if fellow Reg readers in foreign climes have similar problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

Portuguese resident (thank goodness)

I get all my data via a 4G router (TP-Link MR600 dual band). I'm on an unlimited PAYG 1e/day plan, and don't have any incentive to upgrade as I can watch YouTube and/or IPTV channels while downloading Linux ISO images via BitTorrent. I was getting "it's free 5G at the moment" offers, but I'm not interested as 4G is fine for my needs, and it'll just end up as being more expensive once they do the old bait and price hike. If I head out for the day I just stick the data SIM in my dual SIM phone. Actually (https://www.woo.pt/tarifarios-telemovel) are now offering unlimited 4G for 10e/month, which I might switch to at some point, competition pushing prices down, etc. My take on 5G is I just don't need that level of stinking speed.

[Big_Boomer]

Crap network coverage

I live 40 miles from London in a typical commuter town (population 30k) in a large red-brick estate and the coverage here is shockingly bad. I have to use WiFi calling from home because of no signal in my house and just last Saturday night I was sat in a pub and my phone was reduced to HSDPA and wouldn't load any webpage. I asked my friends if any of them had data coverage and it was the same across the board and across all 4 UK networks (O2, Voda, EE, 3). The pub is 200m from a major (3 lane each way) road and 4 miles from a city of 200k population. This wasn't some back-of-beyond place and yet the coverage indoors is utter crap across vast swathes of the UK. Outside the pub we all had between 2 and 5 bars of signal (whatever that means) and everyone was getting 4G. We seem to be paying more and more for ever decreasing coverage, when it should be the other way around. Personally I think that the problem in the UK is that the networks here were over-dependant on 2G and therefore never invested in quality coverage for 4G & 5G. Now that 2G is switched off they are seeing the holes in their service and indoors seems to be the biggest problem for 4G & 5G.

[IanRS]

Re: Crap network coverage

Unfortunately, it might be the pub at fault. Old building with thick stone walls? They block the higher frequency signals that the high capacity networks rely on.

You will have to choose between beer and social media. Probably not a difficult choice.

[Big_Boomer]

Re: Crap network coverage

It's a Victorian era building that has brick walls and plenty of windows, but even that seems to be enough to block their crappy signals. The problem seems to me to be that they have switched to higher frequencies in search of better bandwidth, but have neglected the need to add additional cells to maintain the coverage they used to provide. So, we are paying more and more for a less and less useful service. At home I have to use WiFi to get a half decent data rate and even to make phone calls. That is a piss poor service that I am paying over the odds for. Having the capability to get high bandwidth is utterly useless if I can't get it when I want it. I used to have the same problem (with a different phone) when commuting on the M25. Calls would get dropped because there was never enough bandwidth to cope with the daily traffic jam on the approach to the Dartford Tunnel.

Yes, I chose my beer and dinner over looking something up online. Not interested in "Social Media" when I am actually with friends. :-)