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5G+ — which is EE’s name for 5G Standalone — now provides coverage to over 50 million UK residents, across more than 610 towns and cities.
This milestone was recently reached, along with the announcement that 5G+ had rolled out to 15 new towns and cities, including Aberystwyth, Antrim, Bangor (North Wales), Barnsley, Cheltenham, Chichester, Cirencester, Dorchester, Erskine, Melton Mowbray, Merthyr Tydfil, Newbury, Preston, Salford, and St Austell.
And EE only announces 5G+ availability once a location has “at least 95% outdoor coverage“, so there should be widespread coverage in all of these places.
As a reminder, 5G+ (5G Standalone) is a form of 5G that doesn’t rely on any legacy infrastructure from 4G networks. When 5G first launched, it was mostly non-standalone, which meant it was slower, less reliable, and less efficient than 5G Standalone, so bringing 5G+ to places is a major upgrade, even if they already had standard 5G.
On the way to 99%
EE’s ultimate goal is to bring 5G+ to 99% of the UK’s population by the end of March 2030, which — given that the rollout only started in September 2024 — sounds achievable.
And these aren’t the only improvements we’re seeing. EE also recently became the UK’s first mobile network to offer five carrier aggregation on its 5G+ sites, meaning that these sites can combine multiple spectrum bands to improve speeds.
Plus, the network has announced that it has also now reallocated some of its 2,100MHz spectrum to boost its 4G and 5G networks. So between all that, EE’s 5G network is undergoing some big, positive changes.
Of course, EE isn’t alone in boosting its 5G coverage and performance. Indeed, O2 recently announced that it had brought 5G Standalone to around 70% of the UK’s population. So whatever network you’re on, 5G should increasingly be living up to its potential.
