About NetScan UK

Coverage checker

Enter any UK postcode to see coverage scores for EE, Vodafone, Three and O2 — 5G-grade, 4G and indoor signal, from Ofcom's measurements.

Phones and plans

Links to phones sold by the strongest network, and to its plans, on the network's own site. NetScan shows no phone prices: they change often, so the live page is the only accurate one.

Free, no sign-up

No registration and nothing behind a paywall. Visits are counted with Plausible and, on the homepage, Google Analytics (which sets cookies).

Some links to networks are affiliate links and may earn us a commission. The coverage ranking is produced from Ofcom data before any of that is applied — which network comes first is never for sale.

UK-only focus

NetScan UK focuses exclusively on Great Britain and Northern Ireland, using UK-specific Ofcom data and the four UK-licensed mobile network operators: EE, Vodafone, Three and O2.

For AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile coverage in the United States, see our sister site NetScanAI US.

What the percentages are

Each figure is the share of the addresses Ofcom returned for the sampled postcodes that reach a rating: good or better data signal indoors (the Indoor column), Ofcom's top enhanced outdoor rating (the 5G column), and good or better outdoor data (the 4G column). They describe sampled addresses, not your building. Walls, floors and the room you are in change indoor signal, so check your own postcode, or try a cheap PAYG SIM, before signing a contract.

When a page names a winner

A page names a network as best only when its overall score is at least 5 points above the weakest network's. Below that the page says no network wins, because a gap that small is inside the noise of a sample. Where the overall scores tie but one measure (usually indoor signal) does not, the page says which network leads on that measure and by how much.

What differs inside an area

Area pages compare their own districts; district pages compare themselves with their area's average and with the nearest districts in the same area. A difference is only reported when it is at least 8 points. A district with fewer than 30 sampled addresses is listed and marked as a small sample, but left out of the comparisons. "Nearest the middle" means the third of an area's districts whose centres are closest to the average of all their centres, and "furthest out" the third furthest from it; distances between districts are centre to centre.

How links and rankings relate

Some links to networks and SIM providers are affiliate links, and NetScan may be paid if you switch through one. That never changes which network a page ranks first: the order comes only from Ofcom's coverage data and the formula above. A SIM price shown on a coverage page is a price option on the network that page ranks first, with the date it was read, not a coverage verdict.

Ofcom Mobile Coverage API

The machine-readable side of Connected Nations, published by the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the UK's independent regulator for the communications industry. It returns address-level indoor and outdoor ratings for all four UK mobile network operators. NetScan samples six postcodes in each postcode district and pools every address Ofcom returns for them; each coverage page prints the vintage of the data it used and how many addresses were behind it.

Ofcom's own coverage checker →

Monthly rebuild

NetScan rebuilds its whole coverage dataset from the Ofcom API once a month, so a page reflects Ofcom's current figures rather than a snapshot taken whenever the site was last deployed. Ofcom itself refreshes the underlying measurements roughly annually. The vintage actually in use is printed on each coverage page, not just in the footer.

Four UK MNOs

NetScan UK covers the four UK Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) licensed by Ofcom: EE (BT Group), Vodafone, Three (Vodafone and Three are both part of VodafoneThree) and O2 (Virgin Media O2). MVNOs (e.g. giffgaff, Tesco Mobile, iD Mobile) use the same underlying networks and are not separately listed.

Sampled addresses vs. your address

Ofcom's ratings are periodic measurements at sampled addresses, not a live signal reading, and a district figure is an average across the addresses sampled in it. In-building penetration, local topology and device type all change what you actually get. Where Ofcom has nothing for a district, NetScan shows the labelled area average, or no scores at all. Verify with your operator's own checker, or a cheap PAYG SIM, before signing a contract.

Where does the coverage data come from?

From Ofcom's Mobile Coverage API — the machine-readable side of Connected Nations, the UK regulator's own measurement programme. Every page states the vintage of the Ofcom data behind it and how many addresses were sampled. For the minority of districts Ofcom publishes nothing for, the page shows a clearly-labelled NetScan estimate instead.

How is the coverage score calculated?

Score = (5G-grade% × 0.35) + (4G% × 0.50) + (indoor% × 0.15), on a 0–100 scale. The highest-scoring operator is ranked first — but where all four land within five points of each other, which is most of urban Britain, the page says no network wins rather than inventing a ranking out of measurement noise.

Is the data real-time?

No. Ofcom's figures are periodic measurements, not a live feed, and the vintage is printed on every coverage page. Real-world signal also varies with buildings, terrain and device. Verify with your operator, or a cheap PAYG SIM, before committing to a contract.

Can I use this data in my own project?

Coverage data originates from Ofcom under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which requires attribution to Ofcom if you republish data derived from it.