Which mobile network should i choose

That's underscored by data from Rootmetrics, which named EE the best provider in and took into account reliability, speed and data, as well as calls and texts. If you're considering a different carrier, take a look at our network-by-network guide and you can see which of the big-four networks provides the bedrock of their service.

BT Mobile, for instance, uses EE. So if you opt for them, you'll get the same coverage as you would if you'd signed up for Rootmetrics's overall winner, EE.

By the same token, pick Smarty and you'll get exactly the same level of mobile phone coverage as Three. Ultimately, though, the most important thing is that coverage is good in your area. Since that's where you'll be spending the most time. So the smartest thing to do is use the postcode checkers we've included in our snapshot of each major network's mobile phone coverage in the section above.

It may be that coverage is good on a range of networks in your area. Lucky you. If that's the case, you can take your pick of carriers and may want to look more closely at perks to help make your mind up.

If you travel abroad a lot, or even if you're just planning a holiday or two, it also makes sense to take into account the scale and quality of networks' roaming schemes.

If you need a bit of help with that, check our guide to the networks with the best roaming policies. Without a signal from the network, you cannot even make an emergency call, despite what various networks or handset guidebooks may tell you. The strength or quality of the mobile coverage is largely determined by proximity to a mobile phone network tower. Want to check the mobile phone coverage across a range of networks?

Your mobile phone should tell you how good the network coverage is using a set of bars on the display screen; the signal strength will change as you move around with your mobile phone. The best mobile phone coverage is generally in urban areas, although even really busy cities have 'dead zones' where there is no network coverage. Signal 'dead zones' normally occur where signal between the mobile handset and the phone network cell antenna is blocked.

Rural areas with a smaller population have less physical interference but often are too far away from a mast for good signal. This is constantly improving as more and more antennas are put up around the country to improve UK coverage.

Decided on a network? Now you just need to pick a phone. Check out our pick of the top selling smartphones. Top selling smartphones. And if you need more help, check out our mobile phone guides for all the info you could possibly need. Want an Apple phone? We'll help you get the best iPhone for you. We use cookies and similar technologies. You can use the settings below to accept all cookies which we recommend to give you the best experience or to enable specific categories of cookies as explained below.

Find out more by reading our Cookie Policy. Uswitch Mobiles All articles. Which network has the best mobile coverage? Even so, there are some areas where coverage is still patchy. And you pay up front for either three, six, or 12 months—the longer the package, the better the price per month. Here you get 5 GB a month allowed for hotspot use, after which your tethered devices lose access to that shared Mint bandwidth.

All these plans include mobile-hotspot usage up to that plan cap, with no constraints on streaming-video resolution. Mint does require some compromises, though. And you face the risk of seeing your bandwidth deprioritized behind that of T-Mobile subscribers , especially when the network is busy.

Selecting a network is the trickiest part of picking a plan. Coverage can vary from block to block or even building to building, so carrier coverage maps can be a good starting point only if you can zoom in to the street level—and even then they say nothing about how the network fares in busy areas.

Opensignal , PCMag , and RootMetrics all publish independently sourced network-performance metrics, but those studies take different approaches and are thus good for different purposes. Its coverage map —which, unlike its network scores, also folds in crowd-based estimates from users of its mobile apps —encompasses basically every major US city street and highway, as well as all of the towns and thoroughfares that connect them. You can also find reports tailored to specific metropolitan areas.

This amount of detail makes RootMetrics a great source for gauging overall performance by region. PCMag takes a similar approach but focuses more specifically on network data speed and reliability. PCMag has also historically conducted its tests with a single high-end phone model—last year, the Samsung Galaxy S10 —that may support more high-speed frequencies than your own.

In those regions, it has block-by-block information. Your carrier uses this number when calculating your bill. Looking back to pre-pandemic times might give you a better sense of how your usage might look in six to nine months we hope , and more recent bills might give you a better idea of what to expect for the months to come. These features may help you choose a less expensive plan. So although plans touted as unlimited suggest a pleasing simplicity, you should seriously consider those with a high usage cap that offer more flexibility with that data.

The best way to figure out how many texts or calls you send or make is to consult your billing statement. But this comparison tool requires careful reading: Like Google searches, it shows sponsored results before organic ones.

It also includes far more services than we cover here and shows not just plans with the required amount of data, minutes, and texts but also those that exceed your needs, producing a cluttered presentation overall. If you want unlimited calls and texts, more attentive customer service, and phone financing through your carrier, you should stick with a traditional postpaid plan, where you get a bill for service after you use it.

Many prepaid services are provided by smaller companies that simply resell service from one of the big carriers, so they offer coverage similar to that of the major carriers at a lower price. Others prioritize their own customers over third-party prepaid traffic, as happens with the Metro by T-Mobile subsidiary.

One T-Mobile and Verizon reseller told us that these policies had yet to yield any effects. The wireless services some cable operators offer, based on resold network capacity from one of the big three carriers, represent their own special case. Phone manufacturers have lagged in shipping phones that support all of those different flavors.

The first crop of 5G phones have also been much larger and more expensive than their 4G counterparts and have often suffered from reduced battery life. Back in the land of more common 4G data speeds, services keep trying to make themselves harder to leave in various ways beyond installment-payment and early-upgrade deals on phones.

For example, free-with-your-plan media bonuses like HBO Max subscriptions can save you money on services you were going to pay for anyway but also make it harder for you to leave the service. As long as they do just that, you can expect to see more deals along those lines. The biggest unknown in the industry is what effect going from four big carriers to three will have on competition. All three higher-end plans include 5G broadband, although your odds of enjoying those faster speeds remain very low.

Note that outside of Canada and Mexico , these prepaid plans offer no international roaming-data options. Fi now offers limited support for some Samsung and OnePlus models and even some iPhones. If your passport has dozens of stamps and your current or desired phone is on its list, though, Google Fi is worth a look.

But we want to see how this service fares under its new management. Assuming you make fewer calls than average, Ting offers flexible billing and a choice of T-Mobile and Verizon coverage.

The biggest prepaid brand in America and the corporate parent of Straight Talk—and, if things go as Verizon hopes, a soon-to-be Verizon property—has historically required smartphone customers to patch together a service bundle by buying separate buckets of data, voice, and text.

Now it offers a few standard day plans. Here are the main features and considerations you need to make when choosing a mobile network.

The most important thing you need to consider when choosing a mobile network is the coverage it will provide. Generally, if you live and work in a city or a town, most providers will give you all the coverage you need. However, if you live in a more remote area or you plan to travel to remote areas during the year you need to choose a network that will cover a wide area. Network coverage will ensure that you always have a signal and you are always able to use your phone.

A wireless signal is a huge factor for modern devices as most of us spend time browsing the internet while out and about. In order to ensure you have a decent internet connection no matter where you are, you need to pick a provider who gives great mobile broadband coverage anywhere. It is always important to be able to trust the brand you are with and to be able to contact them for support when things go wrong.

As we have already mentioned above, Vodafone has always had issues in this area, however, Three is the total opposite and has a twitter account for people to get in touch with. Make sure that the network you choose is one that will fix your problems without any issue and give you the service you need. Obviously, price is always going to be a huge factor in the choice you make for a mobile network provider.

As you go about researching each of these brands it is important to compare the price of a similar deal for each to get an idea of the price points you are contending with. Always think about the price they offer and the extras they will provide. A good example of this is the higher price of O2, which provides a lot of exclusive benefits and deals to their audience. You need to weigh up what is most important to you and this will make your life much easier.

View all articles by Andy Sowards. But how do you choose the right mobile phone network?