Network analyst firm Streetwave has surveyed UK mobile coverage (4G, 5G etc.) and mobile broadband speeds along the East Coast Mainline – as operated by the London North Eastern Railway (LNER), which found that passengers can face “hours without mobile coverage access” while travelling between London and Edinburgh. But EE delivered the best service.
The East Coast route is said to connect London and Edinburgh via Yorkshire, York, Durham and Newcastle. According to Network Rail, over 20 million people use the line and its trains each year. But over the course of Streetwave’s 4-hour and 38-minute journey, “significant disparities” were observed between the ‘Essential Coverage’ provided by the mobile operators.
Streetwave defines Essential Coverage as being reflective of locations where the network provides users with connectivity of above 1Mbps download speeds, 0.5Mbps upload, and below 100ms (milliseconds) of latency (i.e. covering or allowing only the most basic of use cases / needs).
Overall, EE delivered the highest levels of Essential Coverage across the line – with 94% of the railway covered. Meanwhile, O2 delivered the lowest levels – with 45% of the railway covered. Vodafone and Three UK delivered 82% and 67% ‘Essential Coverage’ respectively. O2 users were found to have experienced 2 hours and 33 minutes of the train journey without ‘Essential Coverage’, while for an EE user it was just 17 minutes.
Coverage
| Operator | Percentage of ‘Essential Coverage’ Along the Line | Journey Time Spent in Not-Spots |
| 1 – EE | 94% | 17 minutes |
| 2 – Vodafone | 82% | 50 minutes |
| 3 – Three | 67% | 92 minutes |
| 4 – O2 | 45% | 153 minutes |
Mobile Data Speeds
| Operator | Median Download Speeds (Mbps) | Median Upload Speeds (Mbps) |
| 1 – EE | 17.7 | 8.6 |
| 2 – Vodafone | 6.5 | 6.2 |
| 3 – Three | 6.8 | 2.5 |
| 4 – O2 | 3 | 0.7 |
At this point it may be worth reminding readers that LNER and Network Rail currently have a joint project to deploy new 4G and 5G mobile network infrastructure into train tunnels outside London King’s Cross station (here), which we understand is due to be going live before the end of this year.
The results from Streetwave’s study could also help to inform the current debate between mobile operators and the government. This is over whether public money should be diverted from the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) to subsidise coverage improvements along Britain’s railway lines.