If you feel the need for speed then it’s clear which 5G network you should be on, and that’s Three, as recent tests from RootMetrics saw it decimate the competition for top and median 5G speeds.
Specifically, in tests carried out during the second half of 2022, Three was found to have a median 5G speed of 202.8Mbps. That’s far ahead of the second place speed of 141.6Mbps, achieved by EE, and even further ahead of Vodafone’s 107.4Mbps result and O2’s 71.0Mbps.
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It’s a similar story with maximum 5G speeds – or 95th percentile speeds to be precise, meaning those achieved in the top 5% of cases. Here, Three achieved a remarkable 739.4Mbps, with EE again coming second at 380.0Mbps, Vodafone in third at 322.0Mbps, and O2 last at 258.2Mbps. So it’s great news for Three and bad news for O2 in particular.
During our Three 5G hub review we recorded a maximum download speed of 656Mbps with an average of 445Mbps.
Three didn’t win all the 5G speed categories though, with EE taking the top result for 5th percentile speeds – so basically the lowest speeds you’re likely to get on a 5G connection.
Here, EE’s result was 20.1Mbps. Three came second though with 11.8Mbps, while Vodafone was third with 8.1Mbps, and O2 was once again last at 5.4Mbps.
Still, Three’s results are clearly the strongest overall here, and it’s not just RootMetrics that ranks Three high. It’s been rated the UK’s fastest 5G network three times in a row by Ookla, and it also topped the charts for average 5G download speeds in Opensignal’s September 2022 Mobile Network Experience report.
In short then Three is a fantastic 5G network, and as its 5G coverage gets better – which it’s doing rapidly – it’s only going to improve.
