ASDA Mobile Review and Network Coverage

Coverage

Asda Mobile has over 99% UK population coverage for 4G, and 4G coverage for over 86% of the UK’s geography. That’s spread across thousands of towns, cities and villages.

Additionally, Asda Mobile has 99% 2G coverage and 98% 3G coverage. Locations with 4G coverage include but are not limited to the following cities:

Aberdeen, Armagh, Bangor, Bath, Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Canterbury, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, Derby, Derry, Dundee, Durham, Edinburgh, Ely, Exeter,  Glasgow, Gloucester, Hereford, Inverness, Kingston upon Hull, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Lisburn, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Newport, Newry, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Peterborough, Peterlee, Perth, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Preston, Ripon, Sheffield, Southampton, St Albans, St Asaph, St David’s, Salford, Salisbury, Stirling, Stoke, Sunderland, Swansea, Truro, Wakefield, Wells, City of Westminster, Winchester, Wolverhampton Worcester and York.

Use Asda Mobile’s coverage checker to find out more about Asda Mobile's coverage in your area, including signal strengths and details on 4G, 3G and 2G coverage.

5G coverage

Asda Mobile doesn’t currently offer 5G and nor has it said if or when it will. As with 4G it will rely on EE for coverage though if and when it does. EE for its part has so far launched 5G in parts of 50 towns and cities at the time of writing, so it’s expanding fast. That’s good news for Asda, as it means it might be able to offer widespread 5G coverage on day one.

Network Speeds and Frequencies

Asda Mobile customers can get 4G speeds which are roughly five times faster than a standard 3G connection.

In the OpenSignal report above you can see that EE comes out on top, with average 4G download speeds of 33.7Mbps and average 4G upload speeds of 8.9Mbps, as well as an average latency (the time the network takes to respond to a request) of 37.3ms. Since Asda Mobile uses EE’s infrastructure its results are likely to be similarly speedy – though probably slightly slower, since Asda Mobile can’t access EE’s fastest 4G speeds.

Being an EE MVNO, Asda Mobile uses EE’s spectrum bands, which means it has access to the 1800MHz band, the 2100MHz band and the 2600MHz band for 4G.

That leaves the network able to deliver consistent 4G services both in urban and rural locations, indoors and out.

If and when it launches 5G it will presumably get access to the 3400MHz band, which EE currently uses for this.

You can find in depth details of those bands in our 4G frequencies guide.

Planned improvements

EE is currently working primarily on expanding its 5G network. Of course, Asda Mobile doesn’t offer 5G right now, but if and when it does launch a 5G network it will benefit from the work EE is doing.

Traffic management

Asda Mobile doesn’t publish its traffic management policies, but chances are that they’re similar to most networks, in that emergency calls will always be prioritised and in general you won’t notice traffic management in play, unless there’s a fault on the network or your use is classed as excessive.

Plans

Asda Mobile offers a range of SIM Only bundles along with a Pay As You Go service. In either case you’ll get 4G at no extra cost and can use any or all of your data allowance to tether.

Asda Mobile doesn’t currently offer any Pay Monthly plans with a handset.

However, Asda Mobile does offer a handful of Pay As You Go SIM Only bundles, each of which lasts 30 days. These come with a maximum of 15GB of data as standard, and these bundles can be set to automatically recur every 30 days.

Asda Mobile also offers a Pay As You Go service with rates of 8p per minute, 4p per text and 5p per megabyte of data.

With all that in mind the highlights of Asda Mobile’s plans include their low prices and their flexibility, however the lack of Pay Monthly is a major omission – if you want a new phone on contract you’ll have to look elsewhere. The fairly low data limits may also prove restrictive for some users.

Tethering

Asda Mobile allows you to use some or all of your monthly data allowance to tether (getting other devices online). However, as Asda Mobile’s plans don’t come with more than 15GB of data in general, it’s still more restrictive for this than many networks.

Wi-Fi Calling

Wi-Fi Calling means making and receiving calls over Wi-Fi using your normal number and dialler. It’s handy if you have no signal but do have access to a Wi-Fi network and it’s typically seamless, however it’s not currently offered by Asda Mobile.

VoLTE

VoLTE stands for Voice over LTE and is sometimes called 4G Calling. It’s a similar concept to Wi-Fi Calling, but allows you to call over 4G, where typically you can only call using a 2G or 3G network. With VoLTE you can stay in touch in more places, as there are areas that have a 4G signal but no other kind. However, VoLTE isn’t currently offered by Asda Mobile. We’ll update this page if that changes.

Roaming Destinations

Asda Mobile lets you use your bundle allowances at no extra cost in the EU (for a total of 50 international destinations), so you can roam without racking up big bills. However, there's no free roaming offered outside Europe.

Customer Service

Customer service can be hard to judge, but based on the Which? H1 2017 UK Mobile Network Survey, Asda Mobile may be quite good for it.

It comes in fourth overall in the survey, which quizzed 4,026 members of the public. They gave Asda Mobile a customer score of 72%, beaten only by Tesco Mobile, Giffgaff, and, oddly, Utility Warehouse, while its 4-star customer service score was matched by a few networks but beaten by none.

Asda Mobile additionally got 4 stars for ease/speed of contacting and 5 stars for value for money, with all star ratings being out of 5.

On Trustpilot meanwhile it has a rating of 3.3/5, which is considered ‘average’.

Conclusion

Asda Mobile has low prices and short-term plans that last just 30 days, giving you more flexibility than some networks.

With tethering allowed too and EE’s robust infrastructure it’s a solid choice, but data limits aren’t high and free roaming is limited to the EU (which almost all networks offer), so Asda Mobile isn’t ideal if you travel a lot or use a lot of mobile data.

It's also a write-off if you want a new phone on contract, since it doesn't offer any Pay Monthly plans. Overall it’s a very average network, but will suit some users.