If you’re an O2 customer in the Greater Manchester area then you should have just got a huge upgrade, as the network has announced that it has switched on 5G Standalone (also known as 5GSA) in this area.
5G Standalone is a 5G network that’s built from the ground up for 5G, rather than relying in part on legacy 4G infrastructure. When 5G networks first launched in the UK, they were all partially reliant on this old infrastructure, but increasingly the UK’s networks are upgrading to 5G Standalone, which is faster, more reliable, more efficient, and allows for new features, like network slicing.
This latest upgrade from O2 has brought 5G Standalone not just to the city of Manchester itself and its roughly 589,000 residents, but also to surrounding towns like Bolton, Wigan, Rochdale, Oldham, and Bury.
And O2 generally aims to reach “at least 90% outdoor coverage” for 5G Standalone with the places it announces it has brought it to, so coverage shouldn’t be too patchy.
The latest of many launches
This launch follows another recent rollout in Gloucester, and in all, O2 has now brought 5G Standalone to more than 500 locations, accounting for roughly 70% of the UK’s population, or around 49 million people. So the network is well on the way to switching on 5G Standalone across the whole of the UK.
All that said, 5G Standalone only works on select handsets, but if you have an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy phone from the last few years there’s a high chance you’ll be able to get it, and many other phones can too.
