Vodafone Expand 5G UK Mobile Trial and Make First Holographic Call

The hype train for the next generation of ultrafast 5G mobile technology, which will be able to deliver multi-Gigabit broadband speeds and faster latency to consumers, has kicked up another gear today after Vodafone confirmed they had conducted the UK’s first live holographic call using the technology.

At present Vodafone are gearing up to launch their first large-scale 5G trial in seven UK cities between October and December 2018 (here), which will reach parts of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Manchester. On top of that they’ve today announced that Cornwall and the Lake District (Cumbria) will also receive the service during 2019, and that they will have 1,000 5G sites by 2020.

The initial trials will make use of the recently released 3.4GHz spectrum band and aims to offer Gigabit speeds via a 5G Fixed Wireless Broadband setup to specific premises. A more traditional 5G trial for the mobile environment (Smartphones etc.) will follow later, once the necessary consumer kit has started to become available.

Until then the operator is keen to try and highlight some of the ways in which 5G may be able to do things that 4G might have struggled to achieve, which is easier said than done as 4G is already a highly capable network. As such they now claim to have conducted the first live 3D hologram call, which was made between Vodafone’s Manchester office and an event in Newbury.

The call involved England and Manchester City Women’s Football Captain, Steph Houghton MBE, appearing as the hologram and giving footballing tips to an 11-year-old Manchester City and Lionesses fan, Iris. Strictly speaking you could do this on a 4G network too, although the significantly improved latency and upstream performance of 5G should definitely have improved the experience.

Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK Chief Executive, said:

“Vodafone has a history of firsts in UK telecoms – we made the nation’s first mobile phone call, sent the first text and now we’ve conducted the UK’s first holographic call using 5G. We also lead the industry in Internet of Things (IoT) technology, with the world’s largest dedicated global IoT network.

The initiatives we’ve launched today are designed to ensure that everyone can benefit from the digital technologies transforming how we live and work. From our customers and employees, to university students, digital entrepreneurs and businesses, we want to help people across the UK get ready for a digital future.”

Of course we’re unlikely to all be making holographic calls to one another anytime soon, particularly given the high cost of mobile data. Now for a video.

UPDATE 5:27pm

Added a video of the call above.