EE announces 5GSA to support 25 of the UK’s biggest summer events

EE has announced plans to enable its 5GSA network (EE 5G+) at more than 25 major events over the summer, including festivals, and has also enabled the service in more than 30 towns across the UK.

A new advertising campaign is launching nationwide today, which looks to highlight how their new 5G+ technology can give customers “the edge” – but anyone landing on a 2G-based EDGE service may feel rather short-changed… Deploying 5GSA on temporary mobile sites at festivals and events will improve connectivity for customers. The key events will include BST Hyde Park, the Formula One® British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

“The summer has arrived and as our town centres and tourist hotspots get busier, staying connected with fast, secure and reliable mobile coverage has never been more important. 5G+ on EE has been designed to deliver exactly that, so whether you’re video-calling your friends from a packed festival crowd or just keeping in touch with your family while you’re shopping in the high street, switching to 5G+ means you can benefit from a more dependable connection.

We continue to build on our commitment to give customers access to the most reliable connectivity on the UK’s best mobile network. By investing in these latest 5G+ upgrades, we’re ensuring we’re on track to deliver our ambition to bring the UK’s highest quality 5G+ connectivity to 99% of the population by the end of March 2030.”

Greg McCall, Chief Security and Networks Officer at BT

The company also announced they are expanding the rollout of ARC (Advanced RAN Coordination), which allows mobile sites close to each other to dynamically share capacity in real time. The technology from Ericsson can increase the downlink performance by around 20% by allowing devices to connect to multiple radio frequencies on different mobile cell sites simultaneously.

EE say that they have enabled 5G Standalone to around 75% of the UK population (note, this does not mean 75% coverage of the UK landmass). The latest locations announced as having recently benefited from the technology being enabled are: