Network benchmarking firm Opensignal, which uses crowdsourced data from its app to test broadband and mobile networks, has published a new report that shows how Vodafone’s mobile network performance compares across the UK and nine other European countries in which it operates. The Netherlands ends up being the Group Winner, with the UK placing 7th.
The study bases its comparison on their Consistent Quality (QC) metric, which collects data on several key performance metrics (e.g. download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss and time to first byte). The results are then represented as a percentage of users’ tests that have met the minimum recommended performance thresholds to perform common tasks (e.g. video calling, uploading an image to social media, or using smart home applications without disruption etc.) – these are mostly linked to mobile broadband (4G, 5G etc.) capabilities.
Overall, Vodafone (Netherlands) came out as the Group Winner, with a score of 85.3%, six percentage points ahead of its closest sibling, Vodafone (Albania). However, unlike their Netherlands base, Vodafone (Albania) and Vodafone (Italy) are still outright winners for Consistent Quality in their home markets.
However, it’s important to remember that studies like this don’t tell the whole story, not least because each country and operator within a group can still be very different due to variable product selections, network reach and spectrum allocations, regulation and the differing dynamics of each local economy and company history or service coverage. Put another way, we’re not sure how practically useful this all is to end-users, but it is at least interesting.
Take note that Opensignal only included Vodafone (Italy) for the sake of completeness, though the group is in the process of selling it for €8bn to Swisscom. Similarly, the planned merger between Vodafone and Three UK in the UK has yet to take place, with the market awaiting the Competition and Market Authority’s final decision. The firm also excluded Vodafone Spain as Vodafone Group sold it to Zegona in May 2024.