All four operators in the UK have been supporting Voice over LTE (VoLTE) in their networks since 2018. VoLTE transmits voice calls as data packets over a 4G connection and thus is a clear improvement over the „circuit-switched“ connections in 3G or 2G networks. But with 5G a new challenge arises: For 5G-based telephony, “Voice over 5G“ or “Voice over New Radio“ would be required – but this technology has not yet found its way into the current network implementations. So as before from 4G to 3G, a new kind of fallback is needed – this time from 5G to 4G/VoLTE.

For the voice rating, each drive test car and each walk test team carried one Samsung Galaxy S21+ per operator. The phones in the cars called a counterpart in one of the other cars. The phones carried by the walk test ­teams in the cities and travelling on trains called a stationary counterpart. The connected testing equipment regis­tered the success
ratios, call setup ­times and speech quality of the test calls. In ­order to simulate normal smartphone usage, additional data transfers took place in the background of the test calls. Also, the so-called ­Multi­rab (Multi ­Radio ­Access ­Bearer) ­Connectivity denominates whether data connectivity was available during the ­phone calls. The voice scores ­account for 30 percent of the total result.

VODAFONE shows the strongest voice resultS

In the drive tests in cities, FOLLOWED BY EE

In the larger cities, Vodafone ­achieves the highest success ­ratios, closely followed by O2 and then EE. Together with Three, Vodafone also shows the shortest call setup times. EE follows in terms of call setup times, but achieves the best speech quality. Regarding call setup times and speech quality, O2 shows potential for improvement.

Vodafone AHEAD IN CITY WALK TESTS,

FOLLOWED BY THREE and then EE

In the walk tests conducted in the UK‘s larger cities, Vodafone takes the lead, providing the best speech quality. Three follows at a close distance, with the shortest call setup times and the highest Multirab connectivity. In terms of call setup times, Three leads, followed by
Vodafone and a a wider gap by EE. Overall, all contenders score better in the walk tests than in the drive tests.

vodafone TAKES THE LEAD IN THE VOICE DRIVE TESTS

CONDUCTED IN TOWNS, FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY EE

Vodafone provides the highest suc­cess ratios and the shortest call
setup times. Three shows only slightly longer call setup times and a 100 percent of Multirab connec­tivity. In the smaller towns, EE leads
in terms of speech quality and comes in closely behind Vodafone
regarding success ratios. In the success ratios, O2 outranks Three, but comes in fourth overall in the towns.

EE AHEAD IN VOICE DRIVE TESTS CONDUCTED

ON THE UK ROADS. VODAFONE FOLLOWS CLOSELY

While travelling on the connecting roads between the cities and towns,
the drive test cars determined the best voice results for EE, followed at a close gap by Vodafone. O2 comes in third, providing higher success ratios and shorter call setup times than Three.
Vodafone provides the shortest call setup times in this scenario, but comes in second behind EE regarding speech quality. In terms of speech quality and Multirab connectivity, Three scores slightly ahead of O2 on the roads. In Multirab connectivity, Vodafone and Three are on a par behind EE.

VODAFONE AHEAD In UK TRAINS, THREE RANKS SECOND,

AND EE FOLLOWS AT CLOSE DISTANCE

For the third time in the UK, we have also examined the quality of voice calls conducted in trains. While the results have improved since our previous benchmark, they are still by far weaker than in the other categories. Again, ­Vodafone takes a lead when it comes to voice calls on the UK railways, offering still the highest success ratios. Three ranks second with equal call setup times and the best Multirab connectivity. EE follows at close distance with the best speech quality. O2 is behind when it comes to voice calls on trains.

DATA

With the volume of transmitted data permanently growing,
data connectivity constantly becomes more important. Which
operator in the UK manages best to meet the increasing demand?

All four UK networks claim to cover a large part of the population with their 4G/LTE services – the claimed ­percen­­ta­ges range in the high nineties. Their constant race for the best coverage and the highest data rates has helped to establish an overall very good availability of 4G in the UK. Now the race continues regarding 5G – and again, there is a fierce competition among the four network operators to lead the field regarding this new mobile network technology.

The commercial deployment of 5G in the UK has come so far that we assume this standard as a given in the data tests of this year‘s umlaut connect Mobile Benchmark in the UK. So, the Samsung S21+ smartphones carried by each of our four drive test cars and also by the two walk test teams were configured to prefer 5G – whenever this technology is available, it should also be used for our data measurements.

But also in terms of 4G/LTE, the mobile network technology has come a long way. In many areas where there is no 5G yet, the test smartphones could still ­benefit from the combined use of currently up to five LTE ­carrier frequencies, “5CA“, which is currently only supported by EE and can also deliver up to 1 Gbps download data rates.

umlaut‘s testing rewards fast throughputs as well as the networks’ availability and ­stability. In order to assess typical performance as well as peak speeds, we consider two values: the ­minimum data rate that is available in 90 percent of the cases, and additionally the peak data rate that is surpassed in 10 percent of the cases. Web page and file downloads or file ­uploads ­reward fast speeds, while the determina­tion of success ­ratios and ­assessing ­Youtube ­play­outs concentrate on reliability ­aspects.

EE LEADS in data drive tests,

VODAFONE FOLLOWS CLOSELY 

In the drive tests conducted in 19 larger cities, EE leads by a ­narrow margin, followed by Vodafone. Three achieves a solid third ­position, while O2 ranks fourth. On the ­level of individual KPIs, EE and Vodafone are in a neck-and-neck race. In some aspects such as the success ratios of web page downloads, they are on a par. In some such as most of the Youtube results, EE is ahead – in other such as download and upload ­success ratios, Vodafone leads the field. O2 keeps pace well, but ranks fourth overall in this scenario.

EE AHEAD OF VODAFONE ALSO IN

BIG CITY DATA Walk testS

In the overall results of the walk tests conducted in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Greater London, Manchester and Sheffield, EE scores ahead of Vodafone,
but at a relatively close distance. The gap to Three and O2 is more distinct, with these two operators scoring overall on a par in the big
city data walk tests. Three shows high data rates in many of the data
disciplines, but falls back in the Youtube tests – along with O2, which also shows a relatively weak Youtube performance in all tested scenarios.

EE AHEAD IN DATA DRIVE TESTS in

SMALLER TOWNS, with three ranking second

In the data drive tests that our measurement cars performed in
46 smaller towns, EE takes a clear lead with the highest success ratios and overall good results. In this scenario, however, Three manages to
take the second rank from Vodafone by offering slightly higher success rates and also faster data throughputs in many of the tested disciplines. Still, Vodafone follows not too far behind Three in the smaller town, while the gap between O2 and Vodafone is more distinct.

EE LEADS ON CONNECTING ROADS, with a HIGHER

PERFOR­MANCE LEVEL on the ROADS THAN IN the TOWNS 

The lead of EE on the connecting roads covered by our test cars, is quite distinct. Remarkably, EE even scores a little higher in this scenario than in the smaller towns. Vodafone follows at a distinct distance on the second rank, due to good success ratios and decent data rates. Three and O2 share the third rank in the drive tests on the roads – but again at a distinct distance to the second-ranking Vodafone. Particularly their success ratios show potential for improvement.

EE AND VODAFONE AHEaD IN TRAINS –

with much potential for improvement

The tests performed in UK‘s trains reveal much potential for improvement. Even EE, who reach the highest score in this scenario, only achieve 53 percent of the possible score points in this scenario. Vodafone follows at some distance, with Three and O2 further behind.

While the score gap between EE and Vodafone is distinct, the performances of Three and O2 rank quite close together in this discipline. But all in all, there remains much to be done in terms of data connectivity on railways in the UK.

EE and Vodafone very close together in 5G. THREE

AND O2 FOLLOW, with overall balanced 5G performances

Based on their deployment strategy, EE shows the highest availability in the Cities. Three is ahead with the highest shares in the towns, on the roads and in the trains. Vodafone follows at a narrow distance, and while O2 ranks fourth in this consideration, it still achieves 5G shares of ­above 50 percent in the bigger cities. Above that, it is parti­cularly noteworthy that in all four UK networks, the 5G share on trains was considerably higher than on the connecting roads.

As a representative example, below we look at the results of samples with 5G in the 7 second Download tests. Here, Three achieves the highest data rates, while Vodafone shows the best success ratios.

As these ­exemplary values show, EE and Vodafone are very ­close ­together regarding their 5G ­deliveries. Three and O2 follow at some distance, but present overall comparable 5G performances.