The availability of the UK's 4G network is almost twice as high in London when compared to other regions of the country, a new report has claimed.
The State of Mobile Networks report from consumer group Which? says the capital is a long way ahead of other regions.
Those using 4G capable devices in London can access the high-speed data service 69.7 per cent of the time whereas customers in Wales are able to 35.4 per cent of the time.
The study, which looked at large regions of the UK, placed Yorkshire and Humberside (61.3 per cent) and the North East (60.3 per cent) at the top end of the scale with the East of England (48.9 per cent) and the South West (45.7 per cent) as the least connected areas.
"A fast network doesn't necessarily mean an accessible network, and a 4G signal is still often difficult to come by in the U.K," the consumer group said in its report. The work was produced with Open Signal's speed test and used data from 28,000 smartphone users, who had downloaded the app between June and August this year.
"While London may be the most 4G accessible region of the country, it had the lowest average 4G speed in our measurements," the report concluded. "The capital's huge population and big demand for mobile data combined with its high level of LTE availability mean more people are connecting to 4G there than anywhere else in the country."
On average London's 4G speed was 18.8Mbps – the worst of anywhere across the UK. Nothern Ireland's 23.3Mbps was the fastest average speed.
All of the UK's mobile companies are investing in developing their 4G technology but there is still work to do. In the Which? survey, EE had the highest amount of UK coverage (64 per cent) with O2 in a close second (59.9 per cent). 3 lagged behind with with 43.7 per cent.
One solution to improving 4G's consistency is 5G. The next generation of network technology is expected to begin rolling out in 2020. When it launches the communication method will be a step-up from 4G's speeds but not a huge improvement. There's likely to be reliability improvements thought.
5G splits the data into bands, each of which has its own particular bandwidth limitations. By aggregating these different bands and pooling the bandwidth, the end-user should get speeds far closer to 100Mbps.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
