Forget 5G: do you live in an area that has worse 4G than the MOON?

The 10 areas in the UK with the worst 4G coverage

4G Coverage
(Image credit: https://www.seti.org/)

Patchy signal is the bane of modern workers’ lives; now, new research reveals the UK areas that are set to have worse 4G than the Moon.

Nokia has landed itself a lunar contract that it is literally out-of-this-world with NASA granting it $14.1 million to install its first stellar network.

New analysis (via Mazuma Mobile) from Ofcom’s Connected Nations Report sheds light on the UK’s parliamentary constituencies which still suffer 4G signal shortage from the UK’s chief mobile operators: Three, O2, EE and Vodafone.

Only 24% of places featured in the report had full access to 4G on the four big networks – 493 out of 650 constituencies still suffer from a ropey connection that could very soon be worse than the Moon's coverage. 

It makes for particularly bleak reading if you’re from Ross, Skye and Lochaber, Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Ynys Môn, Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar (also known as the Western Isles), which only receive around 50% blanket 4G coverage. That’s a serious gap in signal; we doubt that even any of the contenders on our best cheap smartphones guide would be able to plug-in with coverage as scarce as this. 

But, this isn’t exclusive to rural spots, either: the numbers show that Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland similarly feature in the top ten worst places. Only eight areas that were ranked as having 100% 4G coverage were located in Scotland, with a mere one in Wales (Cardiff Central), and zilch in Northern Ireland.

Clearly, there’s some work to be done to fix coverage in those places, especially if the moon is likely to have basic 4G connectivity soon, and more earthly hotspots are landing ultra-quick 5G technology. Our best 5G phones guide can help you to pick the best of the bunch to connect up. 

The sky's the limit and we at T3 are very excited to see what other plans are in the pipeline for planetary hotspots. Of course, all of this after coverage closer to home is fixed!

Luke Wilson

Luke is a former news writer at T3 who covered all things tech at T3. Disc golf enthusiast, keen jogger, and fond of all things outdoors (when not indoors messing around with gadgets), Luke wrote about a wide-array of subjects for T3.com, including Android Auto, WhatsApp, Sky, Virgin Media, Amazon Kindle, Windows 11, Chromebooks, iPhones and much more, too.