EE Launch UK’s First Commercial Consumer 5G+ Network Slicing via Fast Lane

Much we first previewed on Monday of this week (here), EE Mobile (BT) has today officially launched their new ‘Fast Lane‘ feature, which is described as being the UK’s first commercial consumer implementation of Network Slicing technology on a 5G+ (5G Standalone) mobile broadband network (i.e. giving customers data traffic prioritisation in busy areas).

Network slicing is a feature of the latest end-to-end 5G Standalone (5G+) based mobile broadband networks. In short, it essentially allows for multiple virtual network slices across the same physical network. Each slice is isolated from other network traffic to give dedicated performance, with the features of the slice typically being tailored to specific use case requirements (e.g. online gaming, enhanced mobile broadband speed, payment processing at big events etc.).

Regular readers might recall that Vodafone Business (VodafoneThree) recently claimed to have launched the “UK’s first commercial 5G network slicing” service (Local Slicing), but that was focused solely on specific business users (here). The service aimed to offer guaranteed mobile network performance across a defined site or local area up to 5km2 – from stadiums and logistics hubs to university campuses and construction sites etc.

By comparison, EE’s 5G+ ‘Fast Lane‘ feature is available to both consumers and small businesses more broadly. As previously reported, this feature is included in EE’s new ‘Full Works Plus‘ consumer plan (costing £5 more per month than the regular ‘Full Works‘ plan), and on eligible Full Works small-business plans. You’ll also need a compatible Smartphone that can handle 5G+.

Crucially Fast Lane this is not to be confused with the ‘Network Boost‘ feature on all of their Full Works (and All-Rounder) mobile plans, which delivers more traditional mobile data priority queuing at congested cell towers via Quality-of-Service (QoS) traffic prioritisation (this also works across 4G).

“Fast Lane works by anticipating network congestion and seamlessly moving customer connections into a dedicated section of EE’s 5G+ network, so that – even when the network is busiest – they can continue to stream, share and socialise with uninterrupted speed, all on the UK’s best network. [It is] designed for use in high-footfall moments of the day like rush hour and major events,” explained EE’s announcement.

Claire Gillies, CEO of BT’s Consumer Division, said:

“Powered by our advanced 5G+ network, Fast Lane gives our customers access to a dedicated 5G+ lane at the busiest times. Whether they’re live streaming a special moment from a sell-out gig or processing mobile payments and ticketing at a festival, Fast Lane helps keep customers connected even when thousands of people around them are trying to connect at the same time. This innovation builds on years of investment in EE’s 5G+ network and real-world network slicing trials, marking another milestone for the UK’s best network.

As the UK’s best network, we are committed to bringing our customers the very best in connectivity and innovation. Fast Lane is the latest example of how we’re building on that leadership with the UK’s first commercial network slice to deliver meaningful benefits to both consumers and businesses.”

The catch is that Full Works Plus (i.e. the same as Full Works but with the new Fast Lane feature) will initially only be sold as part of a new premium pay-monthly handset plan (not SIM Only), which seems likely to limit its take-up as we don’t all buy or want a handset bundle. Alternatively, Fast Lane is also available from today to new and re-signing small business customers that take out an EE Full Works business plan on a 5G+ compatible handset.

“To help more customers understand when they are connected to EE’s 5G+ network and benefitting from advanced connectivity features like Fast Lane, eligible customers will soon start seeing a 5G+ icon appearing on their smartphones. This is already available on new and select Android devices and will be rolled out more widely on other devices later this year,” added EE. This is something we also covered earlier this week (here).

The challenge for EE is that making features like Fast Lane attractive to consumer can be quite difficult from a marketing perspective (slicing is not as easy to promote or compare like raw data speeds etc.). Some of the promotional examples we’ve seen have highlighted it as offering 5x more network priority, but such statements don’t mean much unless you can qualify them with benchmarks across lots of different situations in busy areas.

Overall, we think this is a good feature, although whether or not it’s worth paying an extra £5 every single month for something that might only bring you an occasional benefit when in certain very busy locations is much harder to judge.