EE’s 5G Standalone Mobile Network to Cover Half of the UK as 45 New Areas Go Live
Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE (BT) has this morning announced that their latest 5G Standalone (5GSA) mobile network will, from the end of August 2025, be able to reach over half of the entire UK population (more than 34 million people) as more than 45 new UK locations go live. The figure is up from 40% coverage in March 2025.
The majority of 5G mobile networks today are still Non-Standalone (NSA), which means they are partly reliant upon 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 speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, support for Voice over 5G SA (Vo5G) calling, and increased reliability and security etc.
In case anybody has forgotten, EE officially began launching a range of new 5G SA supporting mobile plans across 15 major UK cities in September 2024 (here) and they’ve since been expanding their coverage. Some of the latest locations to go live “in recent weeks” include Carlisle, Chesterfield, Hemel Hempstead, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Gosport, Slough, Stoke-on-Trent, Sutton Coldfield and York among others.
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By the end of August 2025, customers in a further 38 locations will also benefit from 5GSA, including those in Aberdeen, Beverley, Blyth, Boston, Canterbury, Chippenham, Cleethorpes, Crawley, Derby, Exmouth, Great Malvern, Grimsby, Halifax, Harlow, Havant, Inverness, Ipswich, Leyland, Lichfield, Loughborough, Norwich, Paignton, Peterborough, Royal Leamington Spa, Salisbury, Shrewsbury, St Albans, St Neots, Sutton in Ashfield, Trowbridge, Wellingborough, Whitley Bay, Windsor, Winsford, Wishaw, Wokingham, Wrexham, Yeovil.
EE has previously informed ISPreview that they only announce 5GSA availability once a location has “at least 95% outdoor coverage“, so customers upgrading to the new technology know they will receive a “reliable and consistent experience“.
Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer at BT Group, said:
“Whether you are video calling from a crowded train station, livestreaming on social media from a sold-out concert, or simply staying in touch with your family and friends over the summer holidays, 5G standalone on EE makes your experience smoother, faster and more secure.
Delivering a high-quality mobile experience every day for millions of people is what matters to us, it’s what has driven us to build the UK’s most reliable network and why we’re now delivering 5G standalone to more people in more places across the UK.”
EE also recently began to make their Voice over 5G Standalone (Vo5G) feature available to iOS and Android users in the UK with 5GSA-compatible devices and plans. Device compatibility is still a key issue for 5GSA adoption in general, although such things usually resolve themselves with time as consumers gradually upgrade.
The mobile operator added that their current “ambition is to make 5G standalone available to more than 41 million people by spring 2026“, which we’d equate to reflecting a population coverage of around 60%. But we do miss the time when EE would reference mobile coverage using geographic figures too.
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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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Nothing for Telford?
Yeah I thought the same with all the recent activity at sites in the area.
I was thinking the same. Both Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury but missing out Telford seems odd, unless the customer base is too low?
EE has previously informed ISPreview that they only announce 5GSA availability once a location has “at least 95% outdoor coverage“,
LOL, just don’t go indoors or between buildings.
I may have to get a new phone in the next few months, trying to keep mine going for as long as I can, so no doubt the new phone will have 5G, it will be disabled as going by other people I know that has it o9n their phone, it is more of a problem than it is worth, as the phone keeps changing between 5G and 4G.
even disabling it on phones linked to networks is a pain as the networks turn it back on by all accounts. Getting beyond it when companies have control over your devices.
So glad I use sim free phones.
No freestanding 5G here.
A text wall of nonsense as usual.
Was there any point to that post?
The network will switch you up to 5G if your data requirements necessitate it. It will then drop you back to 4G if you do need the bandwidth.
@Far2329Light, but 5G is useless around here, it works, and then you move a few paces, and it sticks it back to 4G, and I have chat to people complaining that it is not as seamless as it should be and when chatting to people they are cut off or the voice drop out for a few seconds.
Never had that when jumping between 3G and 4, or 2G and 3G for that matter.
So surly the best way to keep a decent signal is to disable 5G.
5G don’t even work in many buildings, so what is the point of it?
I grow ever more convinced that this poster is a quite-early and not very well developed AI, trained exclusively on data scraped from Facebook ‘local gossip’ pages.
EE’s Standalone 5G device compatibility still needs some work – no support for the brand new Pixel 9a, or anything older than the Pixel 9….
The Google Pixel 9a does not support mmWave so there will be cases where it will not be able to connect to 5G SA, if at all.
Why does it need to support mmWave we don’t use that in the uk (not usually)
There is no mmWave yet. EE 5GSA is using existing bands and should work with various Pixels.
I can drive over to one of those places at the end of the year to test it then, but for me where I live THE most impressive upgrade by far has been Three’s 4G. I have gone from getting around 2MBS down and 256kb up, to then around 10MB down and 712kb up, to now getting around 50 to 70MB down and 3 to 6MB up! A HUGE improvement and it nearly matches that of EE’s 5G signal. And Three’s 4G signal penetrates buildings a bit better too. Will continue testing but as soon as I can move my main SIM to eSIM I’ll grab a Smarty Sim again.
>now getting around 50 to 70MB down and 3 to 6MB up!
Welcome to 2015 pal
@yuuge oh I have had 5G on EE for a while now. And my nearest town has a few 3 POW’s so I’ve been using the 21st century speeds for a while now. Not bad for the rural area I live in.
I can hit over 100mb on Three’s 4G now, doubt many got that in 2015.
Of the three locations I regularly frequent I’ve not noticed and discernable difference in speed via my Smarty SIM in two of the locations its okay anyway but in one it used to be over 100Mbit but now down to a very congested 20 if I’m lucky.
I think you need the right phone and the right EE tariff to use 5GSA. I’m interested to know if EE would allow roaming users to access 5GSA as I would be interested to try it.
I’m on EE near Bolton Town Centre (A right Dive) and still only get 4G+ 2 bars using a Galaxy S23+. The whole 5G thing has been a big joke. Same with Three, only get 5G when I move out of the area.
I wonder when they’ll enable 5G SA access to older devices. I have an iPhone 14 Pro that should be compatible with 5G SA, but EE don’t support it.
They won’t be. The modem on an iPhone 14 Pro gives a less than desirable experience on SA.
EE deliberately chose to exclude it.
Interesting. I often travel to India and use my iPhone 14 Pro on Jio’s 5G SA network flawlessly (I’m certain because Jio have no NSA 5G in India). I had no idea it resulted in a poor experience.
It’s not a terrible experience, it’s just not as capable of getting the same speeds as newer models… but instead of letting you use it if you want to, they want you to buy a new phone.
It’d be nice of EE to offer us a coverage map, showing where they expect us to have 5G SA, just as Vodafone do for “5G Ultra”.
You can check individual postcodes, and guess based on city names, but both of those area hassle as compared to looking at a map.
EE had been advising of local problems over two days earlier this week. While out and about, it would appear that the %G SA service was knocked out – possibly by the lightning.
Apparently it’s live at my postcode but I beg to differ. I have an S23 Ultra and a full works plan from this year and it doesn’t get standalone here. Still, I get close to gigabit speeds so I guess I can’t complain too much.
Hooray! FINALLY 5G that works properly
The quality of this article is questionable, AI maybe. When you take out and EE contract you pay through the nose for their service. Data speeds are capped unless you pay them the big bucks. EE, no thanks
Would you like to point out your issues with the article? I found it rather informative, but maybe I haven’t got your fine-tuned critical eye…
Nowadays you pay no more for an EE contract than another MNO on comparable terms, and they’ve massively worked on their pricing in the last year. Compare them to an MVNO, then of course pricing will differ.
Uncapped plans are frequently on promotion, such as Full Works for £31 on a SIM Only. That wouldn’t have even gotten you a capped Unlimited plan a year ago, never mind the extras that come with a Full Works plan.
If you don’t like the network, then just move on by.
Bizarre comment overall.
Absolute drivel, I recently changed to EE from 3, big mistake, driving round London at the minute and no 5g signal.