London’s mobile networks fall to bottom of Europe’s capital league

London's mobile network performance has slipped behind other European capitals as operators struggle to add capacity fast enough to meet demand.

The city ranked seventh out of 18 in the continent for median download speed in 2021, but traffic has since expanded faster than available capacity. Other metropolises have improved; London now has the slowest speeds and the highest latency under load, according to mobile network testing firm Ookla.

The research points to obstacles mobile operators face in adding extra capacity: applications for new street masts in London have fallen since 2022, and about three quarters of those filed since 2019 were refused.

The Big Smoke was among the first European capitals to get 5G coverage, yet when Ookla's Q3 2026 tests found the city now has the slowest median download speed (109.43 Mbps), the slowest median upload speed (11.40 Mbps) and the highest latency under load - a measure of how the network copes with heavy use.

Ookla's records …