Mobile Phone Networks

Finding an ethical mobile phone network

This guide looks at 22 mobile phone networks, and all are rated in the table above. Apart from the very top and bottom of the score table, there is not much to separate most of the networks.

The Big Four (O2, EE, Three, and Vodafone) have their own mobile network infrastructure. The other operators are called ‘Virtual Mobile Network Operators’ (VMNO) as they provide services by ‘piggy-backing’ on the others’ infrastructure.

The major issue in the industry is tax avoidance, of which much more below. We have focused on Vodafone, once synonymous with tax avoidance, and Lycamobile for tax because although they both appear near the top of the score table, this position belies their still dubious tax practices.

What’s new in the mobile phone network?

We last looked at mobile phone networks in 2019. The Big Four (EE, O2, Vodafone, Three) continue to dominate the market overall with just over half of all customers. EE still has the biggest individual market share (18%) but O2 is close behind followed by Vodafone and then Three lagging with only 9% of the market.

But there have been a number of changes:

• Honest Mobile is a new entry which markets itself as the most sustainable network and claims to be carbon negative. See more below.
• Virgin Media and O2, two of the biggest names in the telecoms industry, have merged in what was the UK’s biggest telecoms deal to become, surprise surprise, Virgin Media O2. The merger will mean that they will become the biggest network.
• Vodafone has been in talks with CK Hutchison to merge with Three – so there could soon only be three actual networks in the UK.

Which phone networks piggyback on whom?

The table below, ranked by combined score, shows the actual networks used by each VMNO. 

(*) Some existing customers (or those on other deals) will still be on the EE network, until they're moved over to Vodafone throughout 2022. But now that Virgin Media and O2 have merged it is likely that Virgin Mobile will soon be using the O2 network. 

Is there an environmentally friendly mobile phone network?

Carbon emissions and mobile phone networks

For network operators, carbon emissions come from:

• their own operations and emissions from electricity and heating use;
• customers using their phones for calls, messages and the internet – resulting in energy used to run data centres and servers.

For our Carbon Management and Reporting rating we rated all the companies on what they were doing to reduce their own carbon footprint and the footprint of their suppliers.

The following companies got our Best rating for saying how they were cutting their own emissions, reporting their emissions (including their indirect emissions – of their supply chain and use of their products) and having a reduction target in line with international agreements:

• BT (EE, Plusnet)
• Comcast (Sky)
• Currys (iDMobile)
• Ecotalk
• Honest Mobile
• VirginMediaO2 (giffgaff, O2, Virgin Mobile)
• Vodafone (Talkmobile, VOXI)

A word about SIM cards and carbon savings

A couple of networks are making carbon and resource savings, albeit very small given the size of a SIM card, from using recycled plastic in their SIM cards:

• Honest Mobile – half-sized, postconsumer recycled plastic
• Vodafone – half-sized Eco-SIM recycled plastic.

Vodafone, EE, Three and O2 and many of the virtual networks offer digital, plastic-free eSIMs, a tiny chip that's already installed in your phone rather than a physical SIM card. But there are currently only a limited number of phones that are eSIM compatible.

Of our Best Buys and Recommended brands, Honest Mobile plans to introduce these by the end of this year. Ecotalk and Your Co-op don’t currently offer them.

How can you reduce your carbon impact when using your mobile phone?

IT carbon emissions are wildly disputed with some people saying they are often over inflated. However, it is generally agreed that, as stated in the mobile phones guide, the majority of emissions associated with mobile phones come from the manufacture of the phone.

So, whilst not buying a new phone is recommended, a very small carbon saving can come from how you use your phone. Here are some suggestions from Mike Berners-Lee’s book ‘How bad are bananas?’:

The longer you take to write an email and the longer your contact takes to read it, the more the emissions. And if you copy in lots of people who then have to read it, that will bump up the footprint. Email attachments also increase the footprint – send a link to a document instead. And unsubscribe from mailing lists you no longer read.

Sending unnecessary emails, like ‘Thank you’ or ‘LOL’ is another waste of carbon. In 2019, Ovo Energy ran a ‘Think Before You Thank’ campaign to stop people sending unnecessary emails. Their study found that if every adult in the UK sent one fewer “thank you” emails each day, the country would save more than 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year.

To put this figures in context, 16,000 tonnes amount to 0.0002% of our annual carbon footprint and you might think that thanking people, and phoning people, is important for social relationships.

You can cut the emissions from sending texts by just sending plain text rather than gifs, emojis and images. Mike Berners-Lee says that if you want to reduce your communication footprint, texting is better than phone calls and phone calls are better than calls over the internet because the networks use less energy. But even so, the differences are still relatively small.

For an internet connection on your phone, he suggests using Wi-Fi instead of mobile data, especially for large downloads.

Mobile phone networks and tax avoidance

We rated the 22 networks in the Tax Conduct column for their likely use of tax avoidance strategies. Only five of them, less than a quarter, got our best rating, with the rest getting our worst rating.

Best rating on tax avoidance: Ecotalk, Honest Mobile, 1p Mobile, Utility Warehouse, Your Co-op.

Two noteworthy companies who got a worst rating are Lycamobile and Vodafone.

Lycamobile

Lycamobile is embroiled in three disputes with the UK tax authorities over at least £60 million in tax. The disputes relate to corporation tax, VAT, PAYE and national insurance stretching back ten years.

In 2012, the Guardian disclosed that Lycamobile had paid no corporation tax for three years. It has also risked being struck off as a company because it failed to publish its annual accounts on time. In 2016, its own auditors said its complex web of offshore and UK companies was so opaque that they could not account for £134 million of assets.

Vodafone

Around 2014, Vodafone was the target of so many protests that it became synonymous with tax avoidance. Is Vodafone now a reformed tax payer? It certainly is more transparent and better at explaining its tax affairs, but it is still being criticised for profit shifting to low tax jurisdictions and it still receives our worst rating in this category.

How ethical are mobile phone networks?

As well as issues of climate change and tax avoidance discussed above, we also looked other ethical issues such as conflict minerals and workers' rights.

Conflict minerals and mobile phone networks

Minerals such as tin, tungsten, tantalum, cobalt and gold are used in components of IT products and electronics to conduct and store electricity. Our article on conflict minerals in technology has more detail about the problems associated with mining and production.

We rate companies making electronics and IT for their policies in this area.

• Your Co-op, Ecotalk, Lebara, Lycamobile and Honest Mobiles only produced SIM cards, which contain gold, but we judged the amounts to be relatively insignificant compared to companies using substantial amounts of conflict minerals in a wider variety of electronic products, so they were not rated.
• Of those that were rated, only Vodafone got a best rating for its exemplary report which listed all the smelters it uses, and which ones had been audited and verified as not processing conflict minerals.

Workers’ rights at suppliers

Most companies got our worst rating in the Supply Chain Management category.

Two of the big networks – BT and Vodafone – were both rated middle.

• BT fared well on basics like forced and child labour, working hours and freedom of association, but had an inadequate clause on wages as it required suppliers to pay only the wages set by law rather than a living wage. BT and Openreach workers are currently striking (September 2022) over a pay rise that is below inflation.
• Similarly, Vodafone only required "fair and reasonable pay".

Your Co-op received a best rating as its owner Midcounties is mainly supplied by the buying group run by the Co-op Group, which has good supply chain management.

Ecotalk, Honest Mobile, Lebara and Lycamobile who only provide SIM cards so were not rated in this category.

Should I get a new 5G phone and contract?

To access the 5G network, you’ll need a 5G enabled phone and to be on a 5G contract (which will probably cost more) with a network that offers 5G in your area. Most new mobile phones and some existing ones support 5G. To check go to Settings > Wi-Fi and network > Mobile network and then see if 5G is listed under 'preferred network type'. (LTE is half way between 3G and 4G by the way).

From an environmental point of view, it only makes sense to get a new phone when your old phone stops working and can’t be repaired. When that happens, you might want to think about getting a 5G one to future-proof your device. Our mobile phone Best Buy, the Fairphone 4, supports 5G.

NB: 2G and 3G networks are still in operation but they’re expected to be switched off across the UK by 2023 so you’ll have to get at least a 4G enabled phone then. It will be more than a decade before the 4G signal gets shut down leaving just the 5G network.