EE has launched the first 5G network in the UK trialling 6 cities: London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Belfast.
Phones with 5G will require new handsets and will start at £54/month for ten gigabytes of data.
Why should you swap from 4G to 5G?
- Increased capacity – making it easier to get service in busy places such as railway stations and stadiums
- Increased speeds. 4G operates at speeds of Mbps (millions of bits per second) and it is expected that 5G will use GBPS (billions of bits per second). This means that 5G will be 1000 times faster than 4G meaning an entire HD film would be downloaded in less than a second
- Low latency – of particular benefit for online games and new services such as those utilising augmented reality
EE plans for ten more cities to be added later this year and has confirmed that its range of phones would not include Chinese firm Huawei, which supplies network equipment to the UK’s mobile operators for their roll-out of 5G, following the US decision to not allow it to do business in America.
Rival Vodaphone plans to launch its 5G network in July.