EE wins the umlaut connect Mobile Network Test 2026 in the United Kingdom – for eleventh time in a row

Maziar Kianzad, Global Network Benchmarking Lead umlaut, concludes: “Congratulations to British Telecom for its brand EE winning our Mobile Network Test in the UK for the eleventh time in a row. The operator achieves the highest scores in all test disciplines and scores ahead of the other operators – at a gap of more than 100 points. Vodafone achieves a good second place. Three manages to clearly improve compared to its result from the previous year. The biggest score improvement, achieved up to now in our current benchmarking season, is however obtained by VMO2 – nationwide, and also in London.”

For the eleventh time in a row, EE is “Best in test”, achieving 920 out of 1,000 points possible. The BT brand leads ahead of its competitors by impressive 112 points and ranks first in all categories, voice, data, crowdsourcing and reliability. Vodafone ranks second with a score of 808 points. The operator scores on a par with EE in the voice evaluation, the results in the overall voice and data disciplines are convincing. Three follows on third place, with 799 points – improving by 34 points compared to last year´s result. In the data discipline, Three scores only one point behind second-ranking Vodafone, in the crowdsourcing the operator even achieves the second highest score of all operators. VMO2 comes in fourth achieving 768 points. With a plus of 39 points, VMO2 shows the highest improvement in all countries analysed in the current benchmarking season so far. In the voice category, the operator scores ahead of third-ranking Three.

In addition to the nationwide assessment, umlaut and connect evaluated the network performance in the UK´s largest cities. In London, EE and Vodafone achieve the grade “very good“, while Three and VMO2 achieve the grade “good“. EE achieves an outstanding result in Manchester and Leeds and very good results in the other six considered cities. Vodafone is “very good“ in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, and Leeds, Three in Birmingham and Liverpool, and VMO2 in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester.

Benchmark methodology

The 2026 umlaut connect Mobile Network Test in the United Kingdom consists of drive tests and walk tests conducted from October 27 to November 8, 2025. Four drive test cars travelled 16 cities and 24 towns covering 10,170 kilometres. Additionally, two walk test teams visited ten cities and travelled on trains between them as well as to more remote destinations. The selected areas covered 16.7 million people, approximately 24.9% of the UK population. In addition, the results of extensive crowdsourcing analyses, considering 24 weeks from the end of May to early November 2025 are included in the score. The analyses are based on 5.7 billion samples, statistically representing 99.68% of the built-up area of the UK and 99.94% of the UK population. The results of all three test categories were thoroughly weighed to achieve a realistic and conclusive assessment of each network’s potential and performance.

connect’s independent mobile network tests, conducted by umlaut, provide a fair, transparent and neutral assessment and comparison of the networks‘ capabilities to customers, management and supervisory boards of mobile network operators. The assessment was first conducted in Germany more than 20 years ago and has since been extended to Austria, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It has become the de-facto industry standard for customer-perceived network quality.