UK and Germany are a bit rubbish at mobile – Opensignal

A new study from mobile analytics company Opensignal notes the UK and Germany are falling behind in terms of mobile performance.

It took a look at the two operator groups that have networks in both countries and found they all deliver relatively low mobile broadband speeds in those two countries. As you can see in the charts below, Telefónica does a fair bit worse in the UK and Germany than in Spain, but maybe that’s to be expected since it’s a Spanish company. However the trend continues with Vodafone, for which the UK and Germany are two of its worst performers.

“So what’s the reason for these relatively poor mobile broadband speeds in Germany and the U.K.?” said Opensignal Analyst Peter Boyland. “It certainly isn’t market maturity or competition, as both countries have had mobile networks for decades and levels of competition, numbers of operators, etc. are comparable with their neighbours.

“Topographically, both countries have challenges in terms of size and population density, but no more than, say, Italy or Spain. It would be easy to blame poor performance on underinvestment in network infrastructure, but the reality is a combination of many factors including regulation, availability of spectrum, and mergers and acquisitions among network operators.

“The fact remains that Germany and the U.K. are punching well under their weight in terms of mobile network speeds. Both countries are on the verge of 5G launches, but it is likely to be some years before the benefits of these new networks are felt by most mobile users. And there is growing discontent among the business community in Germany, with claims that poor broadband speeds are hindering economic growth. Germany and the U.K. may not be able to wait for the 5G opportunity, as their operators urgently need to make improvements in their mobile network experience today.”

Something’s certainly going on when two major operator groups can only manage around half the performance in the UK and Germany as they can in their leading markets. As Boyland said this situation will be the product of a number of factors, but our gut-feel is that regulation and spectrum availability are probably the most significant of them.