EE will launch commercial 5G in six cities across on 30th May 2019: London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast.
EE says users should experience an increase in speeds of around 100-150Mbps even in the busiest areas. Some customers will break the one gigabit-per-second milestone on their 5G smartphones. The fastest speed possible when EE launched 4G in 2012 was just 50Mbps.
From today, EE customers can pre-order a 5G smartphone on EE’s new 5G Smart Plans. Plans start from 10GB (£54 per month) and extend up to 120GB (£74 per month). EE is also rolling out the UK’s first 5G SIM only plans, offering Swappable benefits, inclusive Service Pack benefits, and a range of great 5G data allowances starting at 20GB per month (£32 per month) and rising to 100GB (£52 per month). EE will offer a 5GEE WiFi plan with the HTC 5G Hub at an upfront cost of £100 and with 50GB of data per month for £50 per month, or for £75 per month with 100GB of data per month.
EE is offering several 5G smartphones including Samsung (Galaxy S10 5G) as well as UK exclusives with Oppo (Reno 5G), LG (V50 ThinQ) and One Plus (7 Pro 5G).
In addition to the six launch cities, in 2019 EE will also be introducing 5G across the busiest parts of Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. And in 2020, even more towns and cities will get 5G sites including: Aberdeen, Cambridge, Derby, Gloucester, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, Worcester and Wolverhampton.
EE is also preparing to launch a 5GEE WiFi and 5GEE home broadband service month. Pricing has not been disclosed but the company says it will be beat fibre broadband.
Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s Consumer division, said: “This is the start of the UK’s 5G journey and great news for our customers that want and need the best connections. We’ve started with 5G in some of the busiest parts of the UK, the widest range of 5G devices in the UK, and plans that give customers the best mobile connection and great benefits.
EE is launching 5G in the busiest parts of the UK, where 5G can really make a difference by providing a more reliable data connection to businesses and consumers. EE is upgrading more than 100 sites to 5G every month whole continuing to expand 4G coverage into rural areas.
EE 5G rollout
- Phase 1: a ‘non-standalone’ deployment focused on using the combined power of 4G and 5G to give customers the fastest, most reliable mobile broadband experience they’ve ever had.
- Phase 2: from 2022, will introduce the full next generation 5G core network, enhanced device chipset capabilities, and increased availability of 5G-ready spectrum. Higher bandwidth and lower latency, coupled with expansive and growing 5G coverage, will enable a more responsive network, enabling truly immersive mobile augmented reality, real-time health monitoring, and mobile cloud gaming. Phase 2 is also a vital step on the journey to the convergence of network technologies.
- Phase 3: from 2023, will introduce Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), Network Slicing and multi-gigabit-per-second speeds. This phase of 5G will enable critical applications like real-time traffic management of fleets of autonomous vehicles, massive sensor networks with millions of devices measuring air quality across the entire country, and the ‘tactile internet’, where a sense of touch can be added to remote real-time interactions.
