Tom Tugendhat has a point, Britain needs to rewire its 5G ambition

The world is moving remarkably quickly. From AI-generated images on the family group chat to driverless cars and robots delivering Co-op food parcels in Milton Keynes, the digital genie is out of the bottle and changing everything, everywhere, all at once. 

But improvement to our mobile signal and broadband feels like it’s moving rather slower. Just ask MP Tom Tugendhat, whose tweet went viral after he complained that the mobile signal in Dulwich was worse than Kabul’s a decade ago, and that he thinks it’s been getting worse in recent years. He’s not alone, over the last few years, one of the few things that has felt broadly consistent is the ever-present irritation of trying unsuccessfully to load a video on the train, understand your colleague’s crackled voice on a Teams call or connect to anything at all when you’re at a conference or festival.  

However, while I share many of Tugendhat’s frustrations, nationally there has been some genuine improvement in the UK’s digital infrastructure in recent years. Data from Ookla shows that the average mobile download speed in the UK increased from 56.34 Mbps in 2024 to 68.46 Mbps in 2025. But this progress is poor compared with many of our neighbours. Ookla’s global league of download speeds shows we’ve slipped from 54th in the world to 59th. Over the last few years, progress hasn’t been sustained, and it means delivery remains patchy across the country. These days, you’ll get faster mobile download speeds in Bulgaria than Britain, indeed it’s not even close, 54 countries separated the two nations in the 2025 ranking. 

Why does all this matter? Well for a start, as many readers will be all too aware, slow or unreliable digital connectivity acts like an invisible leak on productivity. Each Teams call your screen freezes at a critical juncture, each web page that takes an extra 10 seconds to load, may individually be too small to feel like it really matters, but the cumulative drag on productivity is a problem which frankly, given the breadth of Britain’s economic challenges, we can’t afford. 

It can also be frustrating. We commissioned YouGov to survey 2,055 British people on their experiences and feelings on the matter. The research found that 42% of people face issues accessing mobile signal at least half of the time they are out and about. The Ookla data suggests that there are 58 countries around the world where it’s probably easier to access signal on the move. It’s a startling thought for the UK. 

In the 1990s, Brits were more likely to use a mobile phone than people in Germany, France or the US. Britain was similarly quick out of the blocks with broadband, hitting a higher rate of adoption than the US in the mid-2000s and ending the decade as a global leader. Indeed, up until the early 2010s only a handful of countries in the Nordics and eastern Asia were outperforming the UK in terms of digital infrastructure.  

We can and should be aiming for the best of the best digital connectivity. The current government is making the right noises, many eagle-eyed commuters will have been relieved to spot its recent announcement that Great British Railways plans to upgrade the Wi-Fi on more than 1,400 trains to use low-Earth-orbit satellites, allowing passengers to reliably access video calls on the move. Our own modelling conducted with Assembly Research suggests these significant improvements to British train lines would add billions of pounds in productivity gains over the coming decade. 

The language the government uses around the importance of digital connectivity has also improved markedly, with it being identified as crucial for growth in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. At a regional level, there has been a real shift among Mayoral Combined Authorities, with many grasping the nettle and working with network providers to ramp up local provision and fix connectivity cold spots. We’re making progress and it now seems likely that the government will meet its target for 99% gigabit cable coverage and 99% standalone 5G coverage by 2030.  

With a new Prime Minister soon to take office, this is a moment for Andy Burnham to build on the progress already made and set a higher national ambition for digital connectivity. How about a goal for the country to return to its position in the 2000s, when the UK was consistently viewed as one of the 10 best countries in the world for digital connectivity? This would boost Britain’s productivity, symbolically show the world that it is a country prioritising technology and innovation, and help us to attract the foreign investment we so urgently need. The last 20 years have seen a gradual erosion of our global standing in in the world of digital connectivity.  Let’s reverse this trend, guarantee good connection, boost productivity and end everyone’s irritation all at the same time.