Tests reveal regional variations across the UK.
Vodafone offers the fastest download speeds in key British cities, overtaking EE. So says a Canadian mobile data company called Tutela which analysed mobile usage using software that simulates typical usage.
While EE provided the best overall speeds in Tutela’s tests across the country, Vodafone has overtaken EE in Bristol, Glasgow and Manchester. O2 also improved its download speeds in Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham and London after adding more spectrum.
Tutela ran approximately 65,000 mobile speed tests in May and calculated the average speeds users were receiving through each network. EE has consistently appeared at the top of the download speed tests, but the gap is closing. Tutela claims its tests are designed to measure the typical speeds and experience that users get when using common applications like email, viewing web pages and downloading or uploading pictures. These results suggest that Vodafone delivers a better overall experience to users in some key cities.
Tutela works with app developers, running its software in the background of popular mobile applications to crowd-source anonymous data. The company reckons its performance-measuring software is installed on more than 250 million phones which take more than 10 billion measurements every day.