EE was the first UK network with a commercial 5G service, having switched on its 5G network on May 30th, 2019. EE 5G was initially available in the six highest population cities. Since launch, EE has expanded its coverage to numerous additional cities and towns, for 100 in total.

It's important to mention that these places do not currently have ‘blanket’ 5G coverage. However, 5G can be found in many areas with a high population density and coverage is increasing all the time.

Plus, a number of additional places have been confirmed to be getting 5G during the rest of 2020, and EE will be switching on more than 112 5G sites each month - these are not towns or cities but base sites that cover part of a town or city.

EE coverage checker

EE has an online coverage tool where you can enter your postcode to get an accurate estimation of the 5G coverage in your area. EE’s coverage map also shows 4G, 3G and 2G coverage.

We recommend that you check coverage in your area before buying a 5G phone or plan, as it won’t initially be widely available.

CHECK COVERAGE

Which towns and cities have EE 5G now?

EE 5G is currently available in parts of Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Sunderland, Wakefield and Wolverhampton.

Those are some of the major cities with EE 5G coverage but EE has also switched 5G on in numerous other cities and towns, as you can see in the chart above.

Coverage isn’t comprehensive, but it is improving, and more locations are getting EE 5G all the time – recently for example EE brought 5G to Aberdeen, Oxford, Warwick and more.

What locations will EE 5G roll out to next?

EE has named a further 7 towns and cities that will get 5G during 2020.

Note that EE is also likely to roll 5G out to additional towns and cities this year, but it hasn’t yet confirmed where. As with current coverage areas the cities above won’t have complete 5G coverage on day one though. Rather, it will likely mostly just be in the busiest parts.

EE has said that it plans to switch on over 100 5G sites every month.

​How does EE's 5G coverage compare to the other mobile networks?

There are currently 94 major towns and cities with 5G coverage from at least one UK mobile network. EE 5G coverage is currently available in 62 major locations, Vodafone has 30 such locations, O2 has 56, and Three currently has 41.

4G Coverage

If you’re not in a 5G coverage area then you’ll have to rely on 4G or 3G coverage, just as you would have done before 5G launched.

EE likely has more 4G coverage than any rival network at over 99% population coverage, so even in places where you can’t get 5G you should be in good hands. Below you’ll find a 4G coverage comparison between EE and the other main UK networks, based on the latest available data.

5G Network Speeds

We have quite a lot of data on EE’s 5G speeds, but it doesn’t all completely line up. As the chart above shows, data from Ookla suggests that EE’s average 5G download speed as of late 2019 could be 205.02Mbps. However, Opensignal data from the first few months of 2020 puts it at a lower 149.8Mbps.

That second figure is at in line with RootMetrics findings, which found that EE’s fastest median 5G download speed in any city during the first half of 2020 was 145.9Mbps, a figure which was recorded in Newcastle. Its median in other cities was lower, but in all cases across the 16 cities tested, EE managed a median of at least 103.9Mbps.

RootMetrics additionally found that EE’s highest 5G download speed in London was 388.4Mbps and that its median download speed there was 138.1Mbps. And London may not be where EE’s 5G is fastest, as in earlier tests, RootMetrics found that it achieved a top 5G speed of 450.9Mbps in Birmingham.

With all that in mind, you can probably expect average 5G download speeds of around 100-150Mbps on EE at the time of writing, with top speeds of at least 450Mbps. EE itself has also said that once its 5G infrastructure is all up and running, speeds could exceed 1Gbps, so expect big improvements over time.

Latency

Latency is how long the mobile network takes to respond to a request. So it’s the period of time before data even begins travelling. It’s measured in milliseconds (ms), but while on 4G networks it’s often around 30-50ms, with 5G it could ultimately be as low as 1ms – though don’t expect it to be that low just yet.

EE hasn’t revealed exactly how low latency its 5G network is yet, but it has said to expect an almost “instant connection”, which should be hugely beneficial to gamers, but will also help any other thing that requires the internet seem smoother and slicker than on 4G.

According to data from Ookla, 5G latency across networks in the UK currently averages around 21-26ms.

EE’s 5G Spectrum

EE's 5G spectrum holding as compared to rivals can be viewed below.

This chart comes courtesy of Three, and the line at 100MHz signifies the amount of contiguous 5G spectrum required for ‘true’ 5G according to the ITU (the global standards body on 5G technology).

However, it’s worth noting that there are set to be future 5G auctions for spectrum in the 3.6GHz - 3.8GHz bands and the 700MHz band, as well likely as the 26GHz and 8GHz bands, and potentially others, so there’s time for EE to collect more 5G spectrum.

EE also has plenty of spectrum less suited to 5G, with more spectrum overall than any rival in fact.