MedUX, a specialist in international fixed and mobile network testing and benchmarking, has released its 2025 benchmark report on 5G performance across 15 European cities. The research reveals that Porto and Stockholm share the top spot in Europe for overall Quality of Experience (QoE), a measure of user satisfaction, each scoring 4.78 out of 5. Lisbon and Copenhagen follow closely behind as strong competitors. However, the report also highlights significant room for improvement in several cities, particularly Brussels and London.

The research consisted of drive tests conducted during Q4 2024 across 15 major cities in 11 European countries, covering a population of over 60 million people. The drive test cars covered more than 5,500 kilometres to understand how mobile operators are deploying and covering European cities with 5G services.

Porto offers the best overall QoE

Porto shares the first place with Stockholm in overall QoE, showcasing the best data and OTT experience. It registers the lowest gaming average jitter of just 10 ms and delivers fast cloud service performance. Additionally, Porto co-leads with Lisbon in providing the best value for speed (how much data can be transferred) ensuring peak speeds exceeding 800 Mbps in the fastest 10 per cent of sessions. Porto also co-leads with Copenhagen in 5G availability, achieving an 86.54 per cent registration rate and maintains 100% connectivity time in 5G Mid-Band n78, ensuring a consistently high-quality connection.

Stockholm co-leads the ranking

The report highlights Stockholm as co-best overall and ‘5G only’ QoE, excelling in video streaming, with a 95 per cent rate of 4K playback time, and 5G upload speeds, achieving a typical (median) speed above 116 Mbps. The city also shares the top spot with Porto for data and OTT experience. Stockholm boasts top time-to-content performance with fast web page loading times of less than 1 second. Furthermore, the Swedish capital leads in web browsing and file transferring and co-leads in social media experience.

Lisbon provides the most reliable service

Lisbon secures the third position in overall QoE and stands out as the most reliable service, with 99.63 per cent successful Internet sessions. The city also boasts the fastest 5G download speed, reaching 1.9 Gbps, ensuring a superior experience for data-intensive applications. Additionally, Lisbon co-leads with Porto in value for speed and social media experience.  Meanwhile, Copenhagen leads in 5G availability with 86.99 per cent technology registration rate, ensuring widespread access to 5G services.

Brussels and London are lagging

Brussels significantly trails the leading cities in overall 5G QoE. The report reveals that Brussels’ performance is hampered by lower 5G availability and slower speeds. Furthermore, its overall reliability and streaming services needs improvement. In the meantime, London ranks last in overall mobile experience, mirroring the 2024 findings. The report reveals subpar 5G availability, slow speeds, and a clear need for enhanced reliability across multiple services.

“This report underscores the importance of a holistic approach to 5G quality. While coverage and speed remain key factors, high-quality 5G Connectivity and consistent performance across all services and applications are crucial for delivering a truly superior user experience,” commented Rafael González, SVP EMEA at MedUX. “Our findings provide valuable insights for operators wanting to optimise their networks and meet the evolving needs of their customers in the 5G era.”

“Our field measurements confirm that, on average, in major European cities, end-users are connected 25 per cent of the time simply to 4G. Furthermore, of the remaining 75 per cent connected to 5G, 10 per cent of deployments lack mid-band spectrum. This reality dampens the transformative potential of 5G and calls for urgent policy and investment shifts toward dedicated high-quality 5G deployments for enhanced experience and reliability. Addressing these issues is crucial for Europe to ensure universal 5G coverage across all urban areas by 2025 and to fully leverage the benefits of 5G technology.”

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Categories: 5G, Articles, Mobile, Research

Tags: 5G, London, medUX, Porto, stockholm