EE UK Quietly Introduce Mobile Plans with 5G Standalone Support
Several members of ISPreview’s forum community have spotted that broadband ISP and mobile network operator EE (BT) appears to have quietly introduced new / revamped UK plans, which include the first support for their latest 5G Standalone (5G SA) mobile broadband technology. Faster speeds, network prioritisation and other benefits are expected.
The majority of UK 5G mobile networks today are Non-Standalone (NSA), which means they are still partly reliant on older and slower 4G infrastructure. But SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better upload speeds, network slicing, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, support for Voice over New Radio (VoNR or Vo5G) and increased reliability and security etc.
So far we’ve already seen both Vodafone (here) and O2 / Virgin Media (here) launching 5G SA services in the UK, initially across the busiest parts of several major cities. Meanwhile, the BT Group has previously said that they intended, via EE, to follow suit during the second half of 2024 (here).
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However, an interesting thing happened on 29th August 2024 after EE quietly updated their T&Cs (here) and website to include 5G SA on several of their premium plans. This came alongside the option of a ‘Network Boost‘ that may also make it possible to add to other plans, but at present this is restricted to two plans.
Extract from the New Terms & Conditions
5G Standalone
Available to customers on an All Rounder or Full Works plan. Connect in selected 5G Standalone ready locations across the UK using a compatible device. For coverage, see ee.co.uk/why-ee/5g-on-eeNetwork Boost
Available to customers on an All Rounder or Full Works plan. Prioritises data coverage to your phone in busy or crowded areas. No prioritisation of calls or texts. Available to customers in selected locations across the UK.
The new plans have some other changes too and also appear to be a bit more expensive, although our main focus today is on the addition of 5G SA. At present, little is known about the initial launch coverage of the new feature or precisely what sort of performance gain can be expected (we’re not even sure if the 5G SA side itself has been switched on yet), but that will have to wait for the official announcement. The usual caveats of variable device support may also apply.
Personally speaking, yours truly prefers a more simplistic approach, where enhancements like 5G SA are just included by default and the base plans are kept very simple. I have never been a particularly big fan of making mobile plans too complicated via a myriad of add-ons or extras (upsell), which just makes it harder to compare the value of what you are getting. But each to their own.
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We have asked EE to comment.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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As far as I understand Standalone and VIP Data are not yet available, they are included in the new plans in a “ready” capacity meaning subscribers get access as soon as they become available. Both features are being tested in beta with android users being invited a few months ago and iPhone users a few weeks ago, so it looks like it won’t be long before they are publicly launched. The SA toggle is now showing on iPhone 15 series handsets with the iOS 18 beta installed.
Also worth noting that the “All rounder and Full works” plans also now include unlimited smartwatch data as part of their plans, so an additional fee no longer required, it looks like this is applied via a discount on your bill.
Free eu roaming appears to be back as well for most plans. Shame they’ve gutted the inclusive extras down to 1 from 3
My Full Works plan now showing, as i have choosen 3/1 (3 of 1 available) perks/ad-ons on my plan.
That said, it seems as FOR NOW, i could still keep all 3 working, but at a moment, I want swap any of them, I will fall down to 1 only…
I am surprised, as article do not point this more prominently, because this is very very limiting of existing customers as well. And standard vs. premium perks/ad-on will be another fun.
Alongside, my 2.34 GBP per day EU roaming fee is still presented, and I need to have one of the perks as Roaming addon, to avoid paying it. Let’s see, if this will be ended, or, I will need to waste one and only available perk now for free EU roaming.
I wonder if 1pmobile users will get NR SA too! I’m gonna guess not anytime soon.
I assume (at least for now) it will be withheld as a “premium” feature, similar to how (e.g.) 4G and 5G NSA were when they first launched.
As a fellow subscriber I hope so. They did get complete feature parity pretty quick though. I do wish they get an app together though.
I’d be very interested to understand how “Network boost” isn’t falling foul of the UK’s net neutrality laws. It’s very clearly prioritising some traffic over others, for commercial gain.
To quote the legislation “Providers of internet access services shall treat all traffic equally, when providing internet access services, without discrimination, restriction or interference, and irrespective of the sender and receiver, the content accessed or distributed, the applications or services used or provided, or the terminal equipment used.”
Go complain then.
As I understand it, Ofcom think it’s fine for all my traffic to be prioritised over all of yours, for example if I pay more.
What is not ok is for EE to e.g. prioritise Netflix over YouTube, prioritise traffic to iPhones over Samsung devices, or other sorts of traffic discrimination.
How do O2 deprioritize PayG customers then. And on Giffgaff and Tesco?
Sure https://www.ofcom.org.uk/internet-based-services/network-neutrality/net-neutrality-review/
That formulation of net neutrality doesn’t come from the real world. Interpreting it so as to forbid throttling of P2P or charging more for faster 4G or 5G (both long-standing practices), might be literally somehow accurate. Indeed there seems no other way to interpret it. But as policy it’s absurd. If that quote is accurate, it’s a terribly drafted piece of legislation. It’s not even golden rule stuff (the judicial golden rule prohibits outrageous or perverse interpretations). Your interpretation flows directly from the legislation. So I imagine the safeguard is a rule of standing which provides that only OFCOM is allowed to enforce the provision – and that it has full public law powers of discretion not to.
> Prioritises data coverage to your phone in busy or crowded areas.
Is there any word on how this works? Is it just 5G network slicing, or something else? (e.g. slowing down un-boosted customers)
Sort of. I assume there will be a 5G SA traffic queue and a 5G NSA traffic queue. Once the mast/antenna reaches capacity, NSA traffic will be dropped but SA traffic will not, until the total combined traffic drops below capacity, at which time all traffic will flow again without dropping traffic.
Prioritization only works as a business model if you run your network so hot such that some users are getting poor performance, so it’s worth paying for priority. However, this makes users unhappy. Typically it’s cheaper just to provide more capacity than to implement fancy prioritization schemes, yet telcos continue to dream such segmented offerings will generate them untold new revenues.
I agree with Mark, too complicated. I want to buy minutes, texts (both almost always “unlimited” now) and GB. I shouldn’t have to care about the technology. EE seem to be masters of making it complicated by having tiers with/without 5G and speed caps. Now SA 5G. All in the name of marketing and squeezing a few more pounds out of each customer.
Each to their own or, as the operators would have it, maximising ARPU.
EE (BT) 5G SA always crafty more expensive premium. Hopefully 1p mobile (EE) will put 5G SA default with no extra cost!
SA has enough benefits to the carrier that it will eventually be in EE’s best interests to deploy it widely.
No point paying extra for it, it’ll come to everyone eventually.
When 4G came out I ended up buying a couple of 4G phones that never gained the capability to make VoLTE calls, it’s annoying to see the networks launching 5G-SA only for ‘supported’ devices & plans and worse without any VoNR support that will undoubtedly mean the vast majority of people will have to replace their phones to stay functional
SA 5g shouldn’t be a premium (it really what 5g should have been from the beginning) instead of 5g icon (doesn’t mean your using 5g) with 4g upload speed
The EE SA network has been lit up on n28, n1 and n7 for quite some time now so it will be interesting to see how well it works in real-life scenarios. I’m particularly interested in how n28 propagates into ultra rural given that SA should also give better signaling performance.
I am sure I see it 1p Mobile N28 lit up! But it disappear now. Not sure if N28 are 5G SA?
I have to agree with Mark’s take that the network technology shouldn’t really be an upsell. If the network is poor to use in some areas, that’s the networks issue, it shouldn’t be on the customer to have to pay to avoid poor network design.
On top of that, the customers would already be paying for a ‘5G’ ready plan but EE are gatekeeping a key part of 5G and locking them to 4G for the upload. A very anti-consumer approach indeed.
BT seem to never learn their lesson with the charges, add-ons and continually finding new ways to piss on the customer.
Does anyone know if customers on existing full works or all rounder plans will also gain access to 5G SA and network boost? Thanks
Wow. Publicly confirming that you can pay a premium for working data in city centres over the plebs on cheaper plans or PAYG is a new low, even for EE. How about you install infrastructure capable of handling your predicted load instead of creating a two tier network?
I also think you could argue that the service is not as described if they tell you mid-contract that you’re going to get a poorer service unless you start paying extra.
I don’t understand this. What happens if you have one of the cheaper plans that doesn’t support 5G SA, but you are next to a mast which is 5G SA? Do you simply not get connected? Or does every mast which runs 5G SA also have a parallel set of equipment for 4G / NSA?
Hey NE55. So my 2nd phone is Vodafone. I don’t have a 5G-NR SA phone so I will connect to 4G-LTE Advanced for voice and it will switch back to 5G data network.
Stand Alone 5G for some time to come, will just sit on top of the existing Network technologies until SA is more widespread then we’ll start seeing 5G VoNR [Voice over NR] masts put up.
Hope that makes sense.
Probably get the fake 5G connection as has been the case up to now.
Kind of like if you on a ADSL1 service conencting to a ADSL2+ DSLAM you connect with the older tech to match spec of package.
That part as bad as you think. Your phone would just continue as it does now where your downloads use 5G, but your calls and uploads use 4G. I would suspect though that EE SA may be actually active for all customers as it’s better for the network but the speeds or whatever are artificially limited to 4G speeds (maybe around 5-10mbps upload to reflect 4G upload speeds)
I fully agree with you I’m with EE and hated that they added like 100mbps limit I just checked the app didn’t see the boost part as I have a unlimited SIM capped at 100mbps and a all rounder SIM with 10 GB data uncapped speed
The 100mbit limit isnt kicking in for me on essentials, instead they just seem to be using traffic shaping to lower the priority at peak. Outside of peak hours I am maxing out what the cell is capable of which is about 150mbit. (its a mini mast with limited bands and backhaul). I have confirmed with uncapped EE sims and when I used to be on their top package it wont go above 150mbit. However during peak when there is visible congestion, the sim is slowed down noticeably compared to 1p sim’s and premium EE sims. Currently about 1/3 of the speed so circa 20-30mbps during peak instead of circa 60-80mbps.
Their website is broken. You can’t order an all rounder sim only. You end up at a page not found error when trying to select the add on.
Their website is broken. You can’t order an all rounder sim only. You end up at a page not found error when trying to select the add on.
I have a retention deal that continues on rolling, checking the latest deal, it shows how high the standard pricing can be.
£40 5 gig data standard price.
minus £20 loyalty discount
minus £5 loyalty discount
20 gig data loyalty bonus x 6
Final price £15 for 125 gig data, although its now over £16 due to the annual price increase.
Could the timing of this be related to the iPhone 16 launch?
Nevermind this they need to put 5G on payg EE.
1p mobile have that 5G PAYG (EE)
Wow, locking out prioritised data access to VIP plans? I don’t know what to say.
Is it really that hard to deliver a suitable quality of service without resorting to nonsense like this? Surely that’s what all networks should be aiming for as a baseline?
I would understand if it was someone like O2 implementing this. But it’s not… it’s EE. This is greed at its finest.
it’s not really any different to ISPs offering lower contention services though.
I can’t say I’ve ever been in a situation where the EE network is at the point where I’d need prioritisation – even in the middle of London. I don’t go to many football games or Taylor Swift concerts, however.
I visited The Eras Tour at Wembley, erm, once or twice. My EE (1pMobile) signal held up pretty well, especially compared with my sister’s O2 (Giffgaff) signal.
there’s only one thing worth mentioning about EE
Stay as far away from them as you can.
Part of the BT group so you will have your eyes gouged out at every oportunity.
The market price for 2GB of data isnt £16 a month. It just plain greed
I mean, yeah. I pay £8 for 50GB full speed 5G with Vodafone via Talkmobile.
why would I stay away from the network that delivers – by far – the best performance in the areas I use my phone?
Where are you seeing 2GB for £16? the EE website shows 25GB for £16, SIM only.
And of course you could always go for 1pmobile if you wish. Why suffer with O2 or Vodafone when you don’t need to?
“So far we’ve already seen both Vodafone (here) and O2 / Virgin Media (here) launching 5G SA services in the UK”
Really?? O2 still has the worst 5G speeds. I work in central and W London.
The shop is a mess. It’s full of contradictions.
It mentions 12 month SIM only plans but now I only see 24 month or 30 days ????
If I click “Existing customer”, the option to buy a 100GB SIM disappears ??
Their website never works, it is the worst of all networks. You can login go to the shop page and it will ask you to login again.
What nonsense invest In SA rather then have to rely on 4G I understand SA provides better speeds at short distance but have to deploy more SA rather then having less NSA as it provides long distance signal.
UK way behide then some other countries in terms of fast speed connectivity in mobile speeds
SA and NSA are nothing to do with how far a signal reaches or how many masts are required.
SA and NSA uses the same spectrum as 4G so signal strength should be the same.
I just moved off an All Rounder plan three weeks ago, albeit their 125GB plan as I wanted my unlimited data back.
Right now, I typically get about 600 Mbps download and about 50 Mbps upload in my hometown, although this goes up significantly if I’m outside.
The idea of charging extra for SA is rubbish though as surely the main benefit of SA is to the provider as once they have enough people on SA, it will reduce demand on their 4G network.
To be honest I would just like decent 4g here in Surrey and not worried about 5g. All the operators are the same and in the area south east of Guildford gettin* any mobile signal is just pot luck!
Guildford looks like middle of nowhere in terms of coverage. All the networks are patchy – I’m on EE but tried every single other one – none of them offers reliable coverage around here. 5G is a joke, makes no difference if my phone shows 5 instead of 4 as time as the speed + latency are exactly the same or worse and, as you said, I would rather have decent 4G. Most of the times 5G is slower and myself literally turn it off so I am on 4G only. A bunch of thieves.