EE is leading the deployment of  5G with consistently fast speeds and the highest 5G availability, says RootMetrics, while London is the first UK city where consumers can experience 5G at scale.

EE is the frontrunner in 5G, registering fast speeds in all 16 major UK cities, alongside registering the best 5G availability in testing, says RootMetrics.

In spite of London being the focal point for many operators 5G expansion efforts, EE’s fastest 5G median download speed of 145.9 Mbps was found in the North (Newcastle).

The operators’ slowest 5G median download speed of 103.9 Mbps was recorded in Nottingham.

EE was the only operator that registered median download speeds above 30 Mbps in all 16 markets, and EE clocked speeds above 50 Mbps in half of those cities.

In short, even if users can’t consistently access 5G in each location, their speeds should still be fast thanks to the strength of the existing 4G LTE network

Three clocked the single fastest 5G median download speeds at 193.7 Mbps in Liverpool and the fastest recorded download speed of 478.1 Mbps.

Availability is still nascent, however. RootMetrics’ testing in Birmingham, for example, established only 15.4% of 5G connection for Three customers.

Although very similar to their 4G LTE results, Three’s latency metrics were strong, with generally low latency on both 5G and 4G LTE.

Three’s lowest median 5G latency was 23.0ms in London, while its highest 5G latency was 79.8ms in Edinburgh.

The reduced response time between users’ requests and an action being taken could come in handy for consumers heavily reliant on continuous data usage for their gaming, video streaming, and AR/VR application addictions.

The promise of endless connectivity was also emphasised by Vodafone’s excellent and consistent 5G speeds in most markets (median download speeds of 153.4 Mbps in Manchester and 134.9 Mbps in Glasgow), but the operator’s 5G availability has room to improve across the 10 cities in which it registered a 5G presence.

5G availability was also at a shortage with both Three (below 7% in 10 cities) and O2 who only had enough test samples to accurately characterise O2’s 5G median download speed in one city (Belfast, at 121.3 Mbps).

The report also looked in greater detail at London’s Central Activities Zone (CAZ) which covers one of the world’s most attractive and competitive business centres, given that the capital’s streets were clearly the priority focus for operators and the fact that densely populated spaces with tall buildings are where 5G’s impacts should be most keenly felt.

For example, EE registered an impressive 77.5% of 5G availability in central London while Three clocked the fastest 5G maximum download speed among all operators in London at a whopping 463.0 Mbps.

Vodafone’s 5G median download speed of 178.9 Mbps was the winner in central London beating EE’s 5G median speed which stood at 135.2 Mbps while the next nearest competitor, Three, stood at 79.1 Mbps. O2 did not register any 5G results in RootMetrics’ testing in central London.