London is one of the worst cities in the country for mobile signal

London is one of the worst cities in the UK for mobile signal, a new study has revealed, while Manchester has taken the top spot.

The mobile performance tests were conducted by RootMetrics, who travelled the country’s major cities checking the speed and reliability of phone calls, texts and mobile internet, marking each of 100.

Out of the 16 biggest urban areas in the UK, London came in 13th with a score of 90.1, beating only Bristol, Cardiff and Hull, which filled the bottom of the table with scores of 87.1, 79.2 and 77.9 respectively.

Manchester was the clear winner, with 95.4, while Birmingham and Liverpool trailed in second and third place, with scores of 94.6 and 94.5.

Scott Stonham, RootMetrics’ European general manager, explained that London might just be too big for a reliable mobile network.

“Providing a good mobile coverage in London is always going to be difficult due to the density of the population, the architecture and changes in demand on capacity,” he said.

“Our data shows there is still some room for improvement in some of the UK’s most populous areas, and more needs to be done to ensure a good mobile service – a vital part of a city’s basic infrastructure.”

It appears as though London’s mobile performance has actually declined recently – in the previous RootMetrics test in the first half of 2015, London was ranked in a more respectable ninth place.

The Manchester-Liverpool rivalry continued to play out at the top of the table. Manchester only came in third in the previous test, but managed to boot Liverpool from the top spot in the latest survey