Glasgow’s the best and Cardiff’s the worst – we can only be talking about mobile

We can practically hear the shock on the other side of the screen, but Cardiff is the worst performer for real-world mobile performance.

According to the comparison by RootMetrics, the Welsh capital, home to global glories such as the Millennium Stadium, Chippy Lane and, of course, Welsh people, ranked bottom. Demands for a recount have been echoing throughout the nation since the table was unveiled, but we might have to accept the Welsh aren’t perfect at everything.

The ranking were pulled together using six categories; overall performance, network reliability, network speed, data performance, call performance, and text performance, with Glasgow hitting the top-spot after raising an astonishing 11 places compared to the previous report.

“It’s all change in the latest round of results for the metro areas, showing that like the UK’s sporting leagues, mobile performance is just as hotly contested.” said Scott Stonham, General Manager of Europe at RootMetrics.

“What’s clear is that, while there have been some strong performers – particularly in Scotland where Glasgow and Edinburgh are amongst the leaders – there is not a huge discrepancy across the country. It’s encouraging because it shows that while performance continues to improve there are no specific areas being left behind – although naturally some cities perform better than others.”

London sat firmly in the middle, though this is to be expected considering the demand on the network. There might be more investment going into the London network than other areas, but considering the colossal population and the monstrous number of tourists who visit the capital on a daily basis, there will always be a strain on the network.

What is worth noting is the operators seem to be getting better. We might complain about connectivity issues when playing Clash of Clans or streaming a Tom Jones banger, but RootMetrics does claim the operators are improving year-on-year.

In London for instance, instance, EE delivered an improved median download speed from 30.5 Mbps up to 36.5 Mbps, while O2’s median upload speed increased from 6.5 Mbps to 7.4 Mbps. Three’s median upload speed increased from 5.0 Mbps to 6.6 Mbps, and its dropped call rate improved from 1.2% to only 0.8%, while Vodafone’s median upload speed increased from 7.1 Mbps to 8.8 Mbps, and its dropped call rate remained at 0.9%.

Unfortunately the magnificent streets of Cardiff could not live up to this performance. Cardiff saw slow median upload speeds across all operators, particularly from Three, which delivered a median upload speed of 4.1 Mbps. EE’s median upload speed of 7.6 Mbps marked a decline from the 9.7 Mbps it recorded in the previous testing period, while all four mobile-to-landline and mobile-to-mobile blocked call rates compared to those found in other metro areas.

Oh well, at least we have a cool flag and the best accent around.