EE holds UK mobile experience bragging rights

• New Opensignal report shows EE is on the up and up 
• BT Group’s consumer division wins a total of 11 Opensignal awards
• Entire UK mobile sector experiencing “significant structural change”
• Vodafone draws a blank

Opensignal, the independent analytics company that focuses on “quantifying the mobile-network experience”, has just released its first UK research report of the new year. Its UK Mobile Network Experience Report 2026 shows that BT Group’s consumer operation, EE, currently sits atop the greasy pole that is the metaphorical embodiment of a mobile sector that is undergoing significant structural changes and challenges.

What’s different about Opensignal in comparison to other research houses is that rather than relying on data and statistics provided by the operators themselves, it applies crowdsourced signal data in its analyses – data that comes directly from its users own devices. Opensignal says this methodology allows it “to measure the true state of a carrier coverage” and compile a clear picture of Britain’s highly competitive network environment as experienced by actual subscribers themselves, rather than extrapolating and drawing conclusions from network modelling and algorithms.

For this latest report, Opensignal analysed the mobile network experiences of subscribers to the UK’s big four operators – EE, VMO2, Three and Vodafone – over a period of 90 days commencing 1 October 2025 and ending on 29 December 2025. 

It reports that following last summer’s merger of Vodafone UK and Three UK to form VodafoneThree, Britain’s mobile market is experiencing a particularly acute period of “significant structural change” – and that, in turn, has impinged on the end user experience. 

Both the Vodafone/Three merger and network integration is well underway but is still  incomplete, and both companies continue to operate as separate brands. This is confusing to customers and means “real-world mobile experience still differs between the two networks”. Thus, to maintain the reporting of actual subscriber experience, the new Opensignal report continues to describe the results for Vodafone and Three separately. 

Presumably, future Opensignal reports will analyse results from the amalgamated company once the merger and network integration processes are complete. The network integration process officially began on 31 May last year, and initial core network sharing began in August 2025. However, complete, comprehensive integration of the infrastructure “is expected to be finished” over the next six to eight years. 

As the report has it, “the longer-term future of VodafoneThree will be shaped by the ability to deliver on the promise of improved customer experience, and to leverage its strengthened position to support further investment in network upgrades.”

It has some way to go to challenge BT’s division for its Opensignal medals, it seems. 

EE landed 11 of the 15 available Opensignal awards in this new report, while Virgin Media O2 and Three (as a standalone entity) are “recognised” for “leading aspects of mobile experience”, with O2 providing the UK’s best overall coverage experience. 

EE has the most to be pleased about. It has won both the Opensignal Reliability Experience and its Consistent Quality awards outright, scoring 915 points (on a 100-1,000 scale) for reliability experience and 78.6% for consistent quality. What this means in practice is that EE’s subscribers are the most likely amongst the UK’s mobile customers to quickly connect and successfully complete everyday tasks. What’s more, they get ‘good enough’ performance for more demanding mobile apps use.

EE also delivers the fastest overall speeds but, that said, Three is the 5G speed leader. However, EE wins both overall speed awards (when all types of cellular connection are included, not just 5G), with 53.2 Mbit/s for download speed experience and 10.4 Mbit/s for upload speed experience. 

However, when 5G is available and a connection is achieved, Three wins, with 187 Mbit/s for 5G download speed and 20.2 Mbit/s for 5G upload speed – far and away better than any of its competitors. 

However, EE provides the “strongest” 5G coverage experience, while VMO2 wins the overall coverage stakes, by a short head, from EE. 

Vodafone’s Opensignal cabinet trophy is empty this time around…

5G standalone making a major impact

While all this is going on, the UK’s mobile operators also have to terminate their 2G and 3G services and make spectrum available for other uses while simultaneously having to invest in new technologies: These are expensive, resource-heavy and time-consuming responsibilities. 

Vodafone, EE and Three have already shuttered their 3G services and VMO2 says its 3G network will be retired “in the early part” of 2026. Legacy 2G services remain vital to the provision of IoT services and emergency services and, as such, their 2G shutdown deadline has been extended to 2033. 

By then, of course, we may have some form of 6G, whatever that means and whatever it will look like. 

On the mobile spectrum front, VMO2 acquired 78.8 MHz of spectrum from Vodafone UK, raising VMO2’s total frequency holdings to some 30% of Britain’s total mobile spectrum, making the operator a more formidable competitor (at least in theory) in network terms. 

Meanwhile, the UK regulator, Ofcom, has marked 5G standalone (5G SA) as a vital next step in the evolution of the UK’s mobile infrastructure, with the technology fast becoming a 5G key network differentiator across developed markets. 

In its annual Connected Nations 2025 report, Ofcom stated that 5G SA coverage was available to approximately 83% of the UK population and now accounts for an increasing share of mobile traffic.

In that regard, VMO2 has made 5G SA central to its long-term capacity strategy, and in September last year announced that its standalone network is live across hundreds of towns and cities and available to 70% of the UK’s population, giving it the broadest 5G SA coverage. 

EE too is rolling out 5G SA (which it calls 5G+ and claims it is available to half the UK’s population. Vodafone/Three says it is “actively deploying 5G SA, and has ambitious plans to provide coverage to 90% of the UK population “within the first three years” of completing its networks integration programme. 

– Martyn Warwick, Editor in Chief, TelecomTV