EE's 5G Network Launches May 30, Before Rival Vodafone

EE’s 5G network will launch on May 30 in six major UK cities, more than a month before rival Vodafone’s 5G service lights up on July 3.

EE, one of the four major carriers in the UK, will provide 5G connectivity in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Birmingham, and Manchester to start but will then roll out to 10 more cities later in the year.

Customers can expect an increase in speeds of around 100 to 150Mbps, “even in the busiest areas,” with some customers breaking one gigabit-per-second, EE says.

But that upgraded cell network and the 5G devices to go along with it, won’t come cheap: plans start at £54 ($68) per month for 10GB of data and go up to £74 ($98) per month for 120GB. A SIM-only plan will start at £32 per month for 20GB of data, while the equivalent plan on the existing 4G network will cost £20 per month.

Select 5G devices will be available on EE’s network, including the Galaxy S10 5G, Oppo Reno 5G, LG V50 ThinQ and One Plus 7 Pro 5G.

5G customers will also get two exclusive “swappable benefits,” including access to the BT Sport HD HDR app and a Gamer’s Data Pass to cover data used on a selection of games, including Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, as well as streaming from Twitch.

There is also the choice of the Music Data Pass and Video Data Pass (which gives unlimited data for music and video streaming services including Apple Music, Deezer, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video), as well as a roaming pass so you avoid extra charges in the US and Australia.

The elephant in the room is Huawei. At the behest of the US government, Google and chipmakers including Qualcomm and Intel will restrict business with the Chinese company. Although a delay has been put in place that will allow the manufacturer to continue doing business with US companies for the next 90 days, the decision has rocked the company and its subsidiary Honor.

EE is reportedly putting the company’s 5G devices, such as the Huawei Mate X or the Mate 20 X 5G, on hold as the company “wait[s] for more information.”

This is what @MarcAllera, CEO of BT consumer brands (EE, BT and Plusnet) said about @Huawei devices in the light of the recent news about the Chinese brand “we will wait for more information” #5GEE pic.twitter.com/wqYNrVxVVH

— Francisco Jeronimo (@fjeronimo) May 22, 2019

EE says this initial launch is only the first step of its 5G rollout. Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield will receive 5G coverage by the end of the year, with Aberdeen, Cambridge, Derby, Gloucester, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, Worcester, and Wolverhampton getting the upgrade by 2020.

After that, the company will introduce “the full next generation 5G core network,” which will apparently bring higher bandwidth and lower latency for immersive mobile augmented reality, real-time health monitoring, and mobile cloud gaming.

The year after, the company says it will introduce “Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications” and multi-gigabit-per-second speeds, which will apparently manage self-driving cars and the “tactile internet” for a sense of touch to real-time interactions. We have reached out to EE to find out exactly what that means.