Largest UK Carrier To Launch 5G In 16 Cities Next Year

Add the United Kingdom to the list of countries with commercial 5G networks scheduled for launch in 2019. It’s already known that carriers in the United States and South Korea will be launching their commercial 5G networks next year. EE, the UK’s largest mobile carrier, has now confirmed that its 5G network will be launched in 16 cities.

The first lanch cities will be the country’s four capital cities – London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Belfast in addition to Birmingham and Manchester. It’s building the 5G network in the busiest parts of the launch cities including Hyde Park in London, Manchester Arena, Belfast City Airport, Edinburgh Waverly train station, the Welsh Assembly, and Birmingham’s Bullring.

Aside from these six launch cities, EE will also introduce 5G in 10 more cities across the country next year. They include Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, and Bristol. The network will be launched with multiple smartphone partners as well as an EE 5G Home router with external antenna so that home users can get 5G broadband services.

The first 1,500 cell sites that EE upgrades to 5G in 2019 will carry 25 percent of all data across the entire network but only cover 15 percent of the country’s population. It will be upgrading those sites first which can “make the biggest difference to the most people.” The transmission is being upgraded to 10Gbps links at each 5G site.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: United Kingdom