EE recently announced its 5G network has already reached 60% population coverage in the U.K.
U.K. operator EE, which is part of BT Group, said it has expanded its 5G network infrastructure to cover hundreds of localities in rural areas of England, Wales and Scotland.
In a release, EE noted that nearly 500 small localities are now covered with 5G, bringing the total number of U.K. cities, towns and villages where customers can access EE 5G to over 1,000.
As part of the rollout, EE’s 5G is also reaching national parks and popular rural tourist destinations. The company noted that this investment in rural coverage is part of its aim to deliver an EE 5G solution anywhere in the U.K. by 2028.
EE has also revealed that its 4G network is on track to pass 90% of the U.K.’s territory by the mid-2020s, thanks in part to the large investment made in network infrastructure in line with its commitment to the Shared Rural Network (SRN).
Howard Watson, chief security and networks officer at BT Group, said: “The network rollout progress announced today is a critical step toward meeting our goal of enabling a 5G connection anywhere in the UK by 2028. The strength of our underlying 4G network, thanks in part to improvements made under the Shared Rural Network, has put us in the best position to make widespread 5G coverage improvements outside of big cities.”
EE recently announced its 5G network has already reached 60% population coverage in the country.
EE initially launched 5G technology in London, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester in 2019. Other large cities in which the telco offers 5G coverage includes Bristol, Covently, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Sunderland.
To reach its current 5G coverage, EE used its 700 MHz 5G spectrum to offer indoor and wider rural coverage. EE secured 2×10 megahertz of paired frequency spectrum in the 700 MHz band at a cost of £280 million (currently $346 million); 20 megahertz of supplementary downlink spectrum in the 700 MHz band at a cost of £4 million; and 40 megahertz in the 3.6-3.8 GHz band for £168 million.
In September 2022, EE said it was deploying ultra-lightweight radio technology supplied by Ericsson with the aim of improving 5G energy efficiency and network performance across its footprint.
Last year, EE claimed to be the first European network to successfully aggregate a 5G signal using seven different spectrum carriers.
The experiment was performed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies at BT’s Borehamwood lab, and used five 4G spectrum bands and two 5G. The latter included the 3.6 GHz frequencies acquired in U.K.’s latest auction in 2021.
EE noted that the lab tests reached 5G data speeds of 2.2 Gbps in with expected real-world speeds of over 1.7 Gbps on the network. A mobile test device featuring the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform with Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System was used to achieve the milestone, EE said.
