Vodafone customers in London are three times more likely to get a faster 5G Ultra signal than in Birmingham, data from SignalTracker has revealed. In both cities customers of Vodafone’s premier service were actually on 4G at least 70% of the time.
London and Birmingham are the UK’s two biggest cities, the destinations for hundreds of thousands of commuters. A reliable phone signal is the least anyone can ask for, and in our accelerating world, the speed of a 5G signal feels all the more important.
SignalTracker has put both city’s Vodafone 5G networks to the test, carrying out tests using our app in the respective centres of each city and outlying areas. Are residents truly reaping the benefits of the mass rollout of 5G promised by networks?
Our tests used Vodafone’s 5G Ultra service: chosen because the company has the UK’s most-developed 5G infrastructure. 5G Ultra is Vodafone’s name for the most advanced form of 5G, called 5G standalone, and our SignalTracker app can distinguish between this and the older version, called 5G non-standalone. 5G Ultra is Vodafone’s most expensive network offering.
5G non-standalone relies on the existing 4G network to deliver faster download speeds and improved latency. While an improvement on 4G, it is not as fast as standalone 5G which does not use the 4G network. 5G standalone is ten times faster than 4G and beats non-standalone for download and upload speeds.
From our results, it is clear that Londoners are three times as likely as likely to get a 5G signal as people in Birmingham. The British capital is around eight times larger than Birmingham in terms of population, and SignalTracker performed thousands of tests around both cities for this comparison.
Londoners on Vodafone’s 5G Ultra got the inferior 5G non-standalone signal 1% of the time, and standalone 5G accounted for 27% of the tests. 5G was experienced in 28% of tests, which means that 72% of the time Londoners using Vodafone’s premier service were actually on 4G. These results were focused on Clapham, Westminster, Lambeth and extended into busy areas such as Soho and Waterloo.
These central locations, filled with tourist attractions and nightlife spots, are better represented for 5G standalone than boroughs such as Hackney. Outer regions, such as Barking, Bromley and Kingston are among the poorest for 5G signal and our tests demonstrate that the centre of London is better connected. For instance, only two tests showed 5G around New Malden and Surbiton, a massive decline from the city centre.
However, in Birmingham, 5G rollout has much further to go. In England’s second city only 9% of tests were standalone 5G and none were 5G non-standalone, meaning that residents got a form of 5G only 9% of the time, compared to 28% in London.
Our tests demonstrate the infancy of Vodafone’s 5G rollout and how far there is to go. SignalTracker’s data shows that 5G signal is almost exclusively limited to the Bullring and City Centre area but access to 5G standalone vanishes when walking just six minutes away into adjacent Digbeth. Results in Solihull, Newtown, Westside and Gay Village are similarly poor for 5G signal.
In fact, users often see the 5G icon on their phone when they are actually getting a 4G signal.
The SignalTracker app can reveal a strange quirk of many smartphones, where the 5G logo is shown when the base station has 5G equipment but the phone is only using the tower’s 4G capabilities. In Birmingham, 90% of tests on 5G Ultra were in fact 4G, and when the 5G icon was showing 82% of the time this was actually 4G.
Vodafone’s 5G Ultra service is advertised as being ten times faster than 4G, but in Birmingham our tests only accessed this latest form of 5G for 9% of the time. Similarly in London, 72% of 5G Ultra tests were 4G and when consumers saw the 5G icon, 57% of the time this was actually 4G.
This can lead to confusion for customers, and particularly in Birmingham many will wonder why a premier service isn’t delivering the promised 5G standalone more frequently.
In both cities, on Vodafone’s “ultrafast” 5G standalone service, the majority of our tests came back as 4G. It is a disappointing reminder of how far the UK’s 5G rollout has to go, despite the promises of mobile operators.
The SignalTracker app allows you to find the truth about your signal quality, download it for free on the Google Play Store.
