Rootmetrics has crowned Belfast the best city in the UK for mobile connectivity across the first six months of 2018.

Sneaking just ahead of Edinburgh and Sheffield, Belfast scored 96.3 overall, while also ranking in the top three positions in five of the categories measured. Having ranked first for overall performance, network reliability and data performance, the Northern Irish city also ranked second for network speed and call performance.

Looking at the overall table, the rankings do not make for comfortable reading for anyone living in the south of the UK. Nine of the top ten positions were taken by cities which were in the Midlands, the North or Scotland, with leading light Belfast taking up the final spot. London dropped down to 16th overall.

“As the capital city and business epicentre of the UK, you would expect connectivity that is equal to or better than rivals, but that hasn’t been the case to this point,” said Head of Product at RootMetrics Kevin Hasley.

“5G may well be the cure London needs, but currently, performance in other cities like Belfast and Edinburgh has been stronger. It will be interesting to see how the cities at the top end of the rankings encourage investment in new infrastructure to support 5G and thus maintain their dominance.”

For those who bemoan the attention and influence the capital commands over the rest of the UK, this might come as somewhat of an uplift. Companies take numerous factors into account when selected sites for new locations, with mobile connectivity becoming an increasing important one. In the age of IoT and 5G, this might well become more of a conscious factor possibly leading to a more evenly distributed economy throughout the UK.