Virgin Media O2 and EE come top at GWS connectivity experience awards

• Virgin Media wins Best Broadband Experience award and EE comes top for Best Mobile Experience
• As more people look to take out bundled packages, Virgin Media O2 is also found to have the UK’s Best Combined Connectivity Experience for its broadband and mobile experience bundle
• Awards shine a light on the UK’s connectivity experience and test performance of both broadband and mobile networks, as consumers spend more time than ever on their phones – nearly a third of their waking day
• Data also reveals that when on their phones, Brits spend 78% of their time connected to WiFi and 22% on 4G/5G

London, 16 July – Wireless network benchmarking specialist GWS has announced the results of its connectivity experience awards, seeing Virgin Media O2 winning two awards for Best Broadband Experience and Best Combined Connectivity Experience, and EE coming top for Best Mobile Experience.

The results, revealed in full in GWS’ 2024 Nationwide Connectivity Experience Report, follow six months of extensive data collection from GWS’ opt-in consumer panel of 6,000 participants (18+), where the company collected over half a billion data points and conducted over 1.5 million tests related to throughput, video streaming, reliability, packet loss, and latency involving the UK’s major mobile operators and ISPs. In addition to determining the awards, GWS also wanted to provide deeper insights into the overall user experience. This was done by collecting app engagement data via the consumer’s device and attitudinal data via polling.

Commenting on the results, Dr Paul Carter, CEO, Global Wireless Solutions, said: “We’ve released this report to provide a holistic look at the state of the UK’s wireless connectivity – which includes whether you’re connecting via an ISP or mobile network. What we need from our networks varies depending on where we are – if you’re going to be using your phone at home while sharing a network with other people or devices, most of the time it will require higher speeds than if you’re on the go using your mobile network. Our life isn’t one-dimensional running on one network, so nor should our testing be. That’s why we’ve tested the different types of networks people are accessing on their phones, to provide a more meaningful overview of the UK’s connectivity experience today.”

1^st Award: Virgin Media wins Best Broadband Experience

Figure 1: 2024 Best Broadband Experience Award

 

Broadband Performance Test Results and Award Ranking:

• Test winner: Based on performance test results of the UK’s major nationwide ISPs, GWS found that Virgin Media has the Best Broadband Experience out of all ISPs tested (see Figure 1).
• Performance metrics measured: reliability, latency, upload and download network available throughputs, delivered throughputs, packet loss, and video streaming (resolution, freezing, and loading).
• Test highlights: Virgin Media led the pack when looking at mean download throughputs (across all panellists), offering over 170Mbps. The next closest rival was Vodafone broadband providing less than half the throughput (over 75Mbps), illustrating a significant divide in performance when it came to download throughput. VMO2 also performed best in video streaming finishing tops with best resolution and quickest time to load.

User Insights on Broadband Experience:

• App engagement data collected by GWS shows that UK consumers spend nearly one-third of their waking day on their smartphones, and most of that time (78%) is spent on WiFi networks.
• GWS polling also found that a typical household has between 13 and 14 different connected devices, with examples including smartphones, tablets, laptops, game consoles, smart TVs, smart appliances, and security cameras. Looking at mobile devices specifically (smartphones and tablets), households typically have at least four connected. What’s more, over half of all households say that the majority of the members in their house are using the internet simultaneously for more than 5 hours a day, showing the importance of stable and fast broadband connections for work and play.

2^nd Award: EE wins Best Mobile Experience

Figure 2: 2024 Best Mobile Experience Award

Performance Test Results and Award Ranking:

• Test winner: GWS testing found that EE provides the Best Mobile Experience by a major operator in the UK (see Figure 2).
• Performance metrics measured: reliability, latency, upload and download network available throughputs, delivered throughputs, packet loss, and video streaming (resolution, freezing, and loading).
• Test highlights: EE performed top in most of the test categories including reliability, video streaming, and latency. In terms of throughputs, Three had the highest download throughput at 63 Mbps and was tied with EE for the highest upload throughput at 17Mbps

User Insights on Mobile Experience:

• In terms of what people are doing on their phones, GWS data shows that people spend most of their time on mobile devices accessing social media, communications, and navigation apps. In fact, people spend over 50% of their time on just 10 connectivity and social media apps, with Facebook at the top, followed by Chrome Browser, WhatsApp, Google Maps, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Gmail, and Snapchat.
• GWS’ test results for mobile show that operators are all managing the everyday throughput requirements for consumers. This is because the apps that consumers use require far less throughput from the mobile network than what the network is capable of providing. Put another way, GWS measured the throughputs that are delivered to consumers while using their apps and found that throughputs are generally much lower than the maximum throughputs the networks are capable of providing. In contrast, broadband requires much higher throughputs due to the number of devices accessing the network at any one point in time from the same household.

3^rd Award: Virgin Media O2 wins Best Combined Connectivity Experience

Figure 3: 2024 Best Combined Connectivity Experience Award

Performance Test Results and Award Rankings:

• Test winner: In the final award, GWS analysed the performance of partner network bundles across ISP and mobile and found Virgin Media O2 to have the Best Combined Connectivity Experience (Figure 3). The award is the UK’s only performance measure that brings together results from across both mobile operators and ISP partners in one score.
• Performance metrics measured: reliability, latency, upload and download network available throughputs, delivered throughputs, packet loss, and video streaming (resolution, freezing, and loading).
• Test highlights: GWS tests determined that Virgin Media O2 performed at or near the top in a majority of the metrics with Sky also performing well in video streaming and reliability. Interestingly, reliability across all combined providers remained constant when compared to last year’s results. Of note, when looking at throughputs, the fastest average download throughput by a combined provider was offered by Virgin Media O2 at over 150Mbps – well over double the average of its closest rival (EE/BT with an average download throughput of over 65Mbps). When looking at uploads, Virgin Media O2 was also top with an average throughput of 34Mbps

User Insights: How important have bundled packages become?

• GWS consumer polling found that the desire to switch to a bundle deal is one of the top three reasons why consumers are currently interested in changing their mobile operator.
• For those consumers who aren’t currently looking to change, when asked what would make them change operators, getting a good bundled deal from another operator was one of their top three choices.

For more information please download the full 2024 Nationwide Connectivity Experience Report.