Britain's 5G quality gap: why it matters for the tech sector
Britain is searching for growth. Our sector sits at the heart of that ambition. Government has made digital infrastructure, and particularly mobile, central to its industrial strategy, and rightly so. But if we are serious about unlocking the economic potential of 5G, we need to be honest about the gap between the connectivity we have and the connectivity we actually need.
Cellnex recently supported new research from the think tank Progress, The Future Has 5G Foundations, which sets out why that gap exists and what a policy framework to close it might look like. We believe it moves the debate forward in ways the whole technology sector should welcome.
Many of us remember the step changes each mobile generation brought: 1G calls, 2G texts, the first time a webpage loaded on a 3G smartphone. Each generation opened up new possibilities. 5G should be no different. It should be enabling nationwide, scalable businesses to emerge around driverless vehicles, robotic logistics and remote operation. We should be able to rely on a mobile connection to deliver reliable quality when we need it, just as we do with a fixed broadband one. This sounds completely unrealistic. But with the right network it’s entirely possible.
The current policy framework measures success primarily by coverage: whether a 5G signal can be received. It says relatively little about what can be done with it. Only 28.3% of mobile internet connections in the UK were made via 5G in 2025i, and the UK currently ranks 33rd of 38 OECD members for mobile qualityii. For most consumer applications this just annoying. For technology businesses building products that depend on consistent network performance, it can shape how fast your business can grow.
Our European neighbours have understood this for longer. They measure quality and set targets for it, and that clarity has supported sustained investment in fast, reliable infrastructure across the continent. Britain is beginning to catch up. Ofcom's recently published Connectivity You Can Count On discussion paper proposes, for the first time, a standard for what good mobile performance should look like. That is a genuinely positive step.
The question Progress raises is whether the ambition behind these emerging standards matches the scale of the opportunity. A definition of good connectivity calibrated around streaming video and everyday smartphone use is reasonable for meeting consumer need. But enterprise users and scaling technology businesses look for considerably more when asking whether the UK is the right place to build, pilot and scale the next generation of products and services.
Government-commissioned analysis estimated the economic benefits of 5G adoption at between £41bn and £159bn in Gross Value Added between 2021 and 2035. The width of that range reflects genuine uncertainty about adoption rates, and the quality of underlying infrastructure is one of the principal factors determining where within it the UK ends up.
The Mobile Market Review is the immediate opportunity to get this right. Ministers are asking what good quality connectivity should mean and where the investment to deliver it will come from. These are the right questions. The role for government is to define what good looks like, create the conditions that make the sector investable, and hold it to account where standards fall short. Progress on supply-side barriers including land rights reform is welcome, and movement on planning will matter too. But that isn’t the end of the story. Getting more investment into the sector is critical.
None of this is a criticism of the mobile operators. They have built strong networks reaching more than 90% of the UK landmass under genuine commercial pressure. But the sector as a whole now needs a clear statement of ambition and genuine investment incentives to match. In doing that, we also have to recognise that it’s not only mobile operators that want to invest to fix this problem. Cellnex has invested £6 billion in the UK over the past decade and more than €40 billion across Europe, and we have been open about wanting to do more here. The outcome of the Mobile Market Review will be a significant factor in whether that is possible.
Ofcom’s discussion paper is out for comment. We hope to see early movement from the Mobile Market Review. Both are genuine opportunities for the technology sector to help shape the infrastructure it will depend on for the next decade. We would encourage techUK members to engage with both.
