The UK and Ireland are in recovery mode after Storm Éowyn wreaked havoc on electricity and telecoms infrastructure in recent days. With record wind gusts exceeding 180 km/h recorded in Ireland and a ‘major incident’ declared on the Isle of Man, the storm has been historic in both its strength and the extent of the damage caused across the islands.
Today, Ookla Shares Analysis of Storm Éowyn’s Impact on Telecoms Infrastructure severe and sustained decline in mobile performance across all operators in Ireland and parts of the UK on a scale not seen before.
On the day the storm made landfall (24th January), median mobile download speeds in Ireland (10.04 Mbps) were 78% lower than the preceding 7-day average of 47.43 Mbps, while median latency was 23% higher at 47.6 ms. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, mobile download speeds at the 10th percentile—a critical metric reflecting the poorest network performance—dropped significantly on the same day, falling by 63% to 2.19 Mbps and by 74% to 1.31 Mbps, respectively, compared to the 7-day average.
The unprecedented scale of impact on telecoms infrastructure serves as the latest and most high-profile call to action for hardening networks against increasingly frequent and severe storms in the UK and Ireland.
You can find the full analysis and Speedtest Intelligence® data here: https://www.ookla.com/articles/storm-eowyn