Vodafone Puts Ultrafast 5G Mobile Live in 12 New UK Locations
Mobile operator Vodafone has today announced that their new ultrafast 5G (mobile broadband) network has just started to go live across a further 12 UK cities and towns, including bigger locations, like the city of Coventry in the West Midlands, and smaller places, such as the town of Llantwit Major in Wales.
At present the operator holds 90MHz of radio spectrum frequency in the 3.4GHz – 3.6GHz bands, and they also plan to re-farm, over time, their holdings in the lower frequency 900MHz band to carry 5G traffic. The latter will be more useful for rural coverage, while the former is better for higher data speeds around urban areas due to its shorter range and greater frequency allocation.
Vodafone claims that its 5G can deliver “average speeds” of 150-200Mbps on their network (they compare this to 23-35Mbps on 4G), with peak speeds that can reach above 1Gbps in some areas. However, it’s noted that some LTE-Advanced / 4G EVO technology areas on their network can hit peaks of 800Mbps, depending upon device capability and the number of carriers deployed, but that’s rare.
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Interestingly, we haven’t had a 5G coverage update from Vodafone in quite some time, which is fairly normal as operators tend to stop broadcasting new areas about c.2 years after the start of a new rollout (listing every town, village and city in the UK can become a bit tedious). Nevertheless, they’ve today announced a further 12 locations.
The 12 New Vodafone 5G Locations
Coventry
Dursley
Golborne
Keynsham
Llantwit Major
Lydney
Redditch
Rickmansworth
South Lackenby
Thornbury
Watford
Wigan
We should point out that this does NOT mean Vodafone are instantly covering 100% of each location. New areas are usually only announced when they’re in the earliest stages of deployment, and not once that deployment has already reached maturity or completion. Operators tend to deploy outwards from the busiest parts of each location.
Andrea Dona, Vodafone’s Chief Network Officer in the UK, said:
“The arrival of 5G gives our customers some of the fastest mobile data speeds in the UK, and a mobile network they can rely on. It will open-up all sorts of possibilities for our consumer customers, as well as local businesses and their employees, supporting the local economy and helping to deliver a greener, more prosperous and digitally connected region.
We’re investing in our network across the UK and look forward to seeing how that investment will benefit local people and businesses.”
Customers on Vodafone’s network typically pay the same for 5G plans as they do for 4G, which with a few exceptions is now fairly common in this market.
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 and Linkedin.
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It’s shocking how many cities I visit and don’t have 5G on my Vodafone sim whilst me Three/EE sims are receiving 5G in most cities now along with most large towns.
I’ve found EE’s coverage to be quite spotty for ‘Genuine 5G connection’ most of the time I’m finding the networks are just making there 4G masts anchors for 5G but no 5G coverage is really about to connect too.
Typical range of a 5G mast?
Typically between 1.5km and 3.5km but it’s really an impossible question to answer, the terrain, buildings and frequencies used can bring it down to a couple hundred metres or with line of sight and a low frequency like 700-900MHz could potentially be 10km or more
In the UK not very big. Mostly due to relatively low masts very often covered by trees nobody considered as a problem 10-15 year ago when they built it.
I am currently using EE. Problem with EE is voice calls quality. Calls dropped or terrible line. This is only reason I m leaving soon.
EE 4g is faster than 5g.
Have all the 5g fruitcakes moved on to new conspiracies now?
Nope they’ve thrown out a mast applications here, nimbys complaining about the size, location and radiation, I don’t see any solution to the areas of opposition, the Shared Rural Network won’t solve it.
Is there a way of telling how close I am to a 5G mast?
Cellmapper.net has reasonably accurate maps
I really am starting to see more and more locations, with Vodafone 5G coverage. Living in the borough of one of those towns, it’s definitely spread a long way from the centre. They appear to have tackled the towns of lower population, in the first instance. I’d rather they do it right, first time.
Mobile operators should be required to publish a detailed roadmap of when their 5g services will be installed. Not just the name of a town or city, it should show exact coverage down to the metre, and when it will be online to the week.