EE Expand 5G Cover to 60% of UK and Adds 19 New Locations UPDATE
Consumer broadband ISP and mobile operator EE (BT) has today announced that their ultrafast 5G based (mobile broadband) network now covers 60% of the UK’s population (up from 50% in May 2022) and, on top of that, they’ve named 19 new locations where the network has just gone live.
At present EE’s 5G network typically involves the use of various different radio spectrum bands, such as 3.4-4GHz, 2100MHz and 700MHz (the deployed bands may differ between mast sites). But this is expected to increase once 3G is retired over the next few years and Ofcom auctions off more spectrum frequency.
Otherwise, the operator usually only announces new locations as being live if they have a minimum population of 10,000 people, within which they must also be delivering 5G coverage to “at least a third of that local population as well as the centre of the location” (some of their rivals announce locations despite only having the smallest of coverage).
Speaking of which, they’ve today announced a further 19 “rural locations” where the network has introduced 5G. But a few of the new locations, like Windsor and Preston, are really pushing that rural definition a bit.
EE’s 19 New 5G Mobile Locations
Abergavenny / Y Fenni
Banbury
Basildon
Beverley
Chepstow / Cas-Gwent
Coatbridge
Corby
Cwmbran
Immingham
Llanelli
Margate
Preston
Reading
Shrewsbury
Slough
Tewkesbury
Warrington
Windsor
Wishaw
All of this should help with their ambition to deliver 5G connectivity solutions anywhere in the UK by 2028 – through a combination of permanent coverage (90% of the UK’s landmass) and on-demand solutions (to tackle the final 10%).
UPDATE 11:08am
We’ve been informed that the email that was issued to us incorrectly referenced the new areas as being “rural locations” (fault of the PR firm, not EE).
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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EE are by far the best network overall. You get fast 4G almost everywhere.
Vodafone coming in second, but they have a tendency to drop to 3G sometimes with data throughput non existent.
Three comes in third as a cheap version of EE. The fastest 5G, only if you’re stood within eyesight of their new masts though. Rural areas there are some shocking gaps in coverage.
O2 comes in last, they’re just an embarrassment.
@Jimmy depends where you live.
Where I live in SW London O2 is the best, especially indoors where EE frequently doesn’t work. O2 is fast, reliable and just works. I know London is a bit of a law unto itself but just saying X network is useless is not useful for anyone.
@Gigabit I guess reading isn’t one of your strong points. Note I said “overall”.
There are some places Vodafone/O2 are better than EE. But traveling in the UK, EE are more likely to give you a working data connection probably through 4G.
Wow you’re a rude one aren’t you Jimmy. EE sucks, poor 5G rollout, overpriced and slow. Try using it in Central London. Oh and O2 bad bwahahaha faster 5G than EE.
I want to address this, it is true that in different areas the coverage is better with one operator above another. An example is where I live, I hardly get any coverage with Three indoor while with EE I have enough to have light browsing and a decent connection.
However, to @JimmyBob point. I used EE in the car to travel to many different locations in the UK mainly South East and the cover with EE is by far superior to any other network I used (O2, Vodafone, Three). When I conducted the test I was streaming music, and with Three I had many interruptions while with EE it just worked everywhere.
One thing I wish the government would do, It would be to create a Mobile infrastructure organisation which would aim to cover the entire UK in 5G. They would be able to license out the network accordingly to any Mobile provider at cost, I.E no profit organisation. This would mean the cover would be 99.9% and lead to more competition as it would be the packaging which would be the difference between operators. A bit like OpenReach setup but for mobile.
I too wish to comment on this and am in no way shape or form the same person as before but larping under a different user name. And I have indeed visited every city and every town in these great British isles and have found that EE is slow and has 5G on less places than anyone except for Vodafone. I have found their speeds to be shockingly slow in Manchester, London, Brighton, Birmingham and on and on. I have found EE to be poor for work with constant dropouts and extremely high latency. I have found their voice network to be unreliable with frequent garbled calls both on the radio network and on WiFi calling. I have found three to be excellent and can provide me with over 900 megabits of bandwidth while EE struggle to make the needle go past the 100 megabit mark. Now what would you fine internet folk prefer? A network that had to go online and comment about how great they are and how very bad indeed the others are and also charge you £50 a month for poor service or a network that charges £18 a month for truly unlimited everything? Oh and can do 900 mbit or over a gig while EE cannot and also have a “Fair Use Policy” aka a cap.
Still have poor call quality with EE though. The basics would be handy.
EE is for boomers and shut-ins.
Really !!!
Clearly a employee
Good try
With you there JimmyBob on EE myself for the fastest speeds but poor signal indoors unless close to the mast been on Vodafone before they’re the best in my area for signal but in second for speed 3rd 02 and 4th be 3
Hahahaha the number of EE shills here to tell how great they are is amusing. And on a forum of internet people who know exactly how fast EE is and their coverage. Maybe they’re trying to hopelessly justify their huge bills and cope. Maybe they’re employees too hah
I use EE for work. It’s great, because there’s a signal but the calls are dropped or it doesn’t ring and goes to voicemail so I don’t have to talk to someone who plugged a USB cable into the ethernet port and then says my internet doesn’t work and the mouse too.
Keep it up EE. Coverage is great. Call quality is horrendous. But suits me fine
These discussions about which network is best are waste of time as it all depends on the capacity each network have in your area.
In London, Three is the best for 5G and probably the worse for 4G. EE has the best 4G and okay 5G. Vodafone and O2 depends a lot if you’re in their area of control (north/south) and in O2’s case, if you’re near one of their small cells and if they have deployed B40 in the area or not.
This reality doesn’t apply to someone in a place where Three still hasn’t upgraded their 3G sites or were EE is terrible. There maybe Vodafone or O2 are better, especially if their backhaul provider (eg: Virgin Media) has a better network in the area.
The experience also depends a lot on one’s use. Bad call quality on EE won’t be noticeable by someone that barely makes normal phone calls, but uses a lot of data.
Just because someone has a different experience from you, it doesn’t that they’re shills.
@Le Redditor, every city and town? That is some feat, not impossible, but still some feat.
Before I went to Smarty I was using Plusnet mobile, which is EE and apart from the first day when Data would not work, Plusnet sorted it, I had no problem with EE signal, well I did at a mate’s place, but then everyone one did there for some reason. Quality was fine for voice, and it worked well, even in the canteen at work and a lot of people used to have to go by the window to get a signal.
The reason I changed to Smarty was simply due to better value for money.
After just completing a trial comparing EE, Vodafone and 3 for 400 field workers (our contract is coming up for renewal) across Scotland and England in rural and sub rural locations I can say we found EE to be the most reliable.
As for areas of dense population it works fine enough but isn’t of importance to us (our field crews rarely, if ever, work there).
My advice would be look at your use case (location, device, mobility, cost etc) and you’ll find the “best” provider will vary.
I won’t tell you EE is great, but will tell you O2 is crap.
Reality will you that Three is the best 5G network and possibly the best Voice calling network too.
@Gigabit is Correct Horse Battery on Digital Spy and relentlessly posts the same pro O2 stuff on there.
@Jon Hi mate, yes I am on DS good to see you over here too 🙂
I agree EE has the best overall coverage and the metrics don’t dispute that in any way – and neither would I. I just said that O2 isn’t a useless network IN MY EXPERIENCE where I live and work. I even said London is somewhat a law unto itself. I wasn’t recommending or even suggesting you or anyone else use O2, just that I don’t agree personally they are “useless”. I have EE, Vodafone (who I used to work for, for a long time) and O2 SIMs in my iPhone and find for me at the moment O2 works best. Maybe that will change.
Hope that helps, I am not here to big up O2 or anyone else, just wanted to post an alternative perspective. Feel free to ignore if you wish.
All the best,
CHB/Gigabit
@Gigabit
As a previous O2 contract customer until November 2022, and a current O2 network monitor via Lyca SIM
I will only agree that a network that cannot establish/maintaine a clear voice call in an urban setting where it has a 5G network (in this case Birmingham and surrounding areas) and furthermore fails more than once a week to send a text message or receive one within 1 minute is in my book and most others
A network that can be considered USELESS, regardless of the use case in another setting.
My work on these very forums in regard to network testing and running multiple networks services day to day and feeding back is well known and I only started writing about it some years ago but I’ve never in my time had the need to write of bad qaulity or unreliable calls and texts when discussing 4G/5G services because these things are naturally expected.
I’ve never had the need to write of such issues when using or sampling any other network providor including infrastructure neighbour Vodafone.
Why do people still ‘spot review’ networks. EVERY single person will have different use cases intermixed with so many variables that there impossible to review, so it’s based on someones biases, experiences, past and present and how they’re doing now.
What matters is what works for you, WHAT NOT worked for someone as people are quick to complain and slow to praise.
Surprisingly I’m with 3UK there’s a cell outside my place and it’s quick so I’m going to to say their quick and have awesome signal, yet EE are bad here (see how pointless spot reviews are?!)
Indeed and for me Three is hopelessly slow and has no data throughout during peak times – but I accept if you live next to one of the new sites they work brilliantly.
And maybe four years ago even Three was amazing and fast everywhere with fast 3G.
Things change, some networks work better for others.
My advice is always the same: buy some PAYG SIMs and test the networks where you live and work. No network in my view is “useless”, they are all good, just some better than others depending on location. If you want to play the odds I’d go with EE if you want to use the internet and Vodafone if you want to make calls.
Better to spot-review the coverage maps, if anything.
They’re hopelessly optimistic in rolling countryside I find. Problem is there’s not really any way of correcting the maps by reporting actual experience.
How will coverage maps ever get any better?
Preston 5G – not in the centre or the West of the town. In fact I haven’t got EE 5G anywhere when out and about in Preston. I have to go North to Lancaster\South Lakes or East to Clitheroe\Blackburn to see EE 5G on my phone.
I don’t quite understand this. EE had 5G at Reading Station (and surrounding areas) for more than a year…
EE doesn’t list an area as having 5G until it’s covered a decent percentage.
Already have 5G fromEE around here, but it can be flaky so I have been told by a couple of people. Not so bad when you are outside, but don’t dare go into a building. I will stay with 4g, at least it works in buildings, but then I am with Smarty who is three, they say we have 5G.
To provide an alternative data point, I have no problem with n78 signal from either EE or Three indoors. The mast is about 1km away and on my router (indoors but upstairs) I have no difficulty getting 800Mbps from Three or 400Mbps from EE
Obviously it depends what type of insulation material is in the walls and windows of your home, maybe I’m just lucky that my home wasn’t built like a Faraday cage.
I’ve been with EE for about four years and overall I’ve been happy with them. Occasionally, I can’t get a signal in a shop but BT WiFi is available and easy enough to connect to.
My only gripe is that they don’t do lower data tariffs like the other networks. I only really need around 30GB a month but they keep insisting on putting me on over 100 to 200 and it keeps going up year by year!
I might switch this year when my contract is up to Vodafone. I was with them in the past and had no issues, but was swayed over to EE by a friend who said they were miles quicker. They are sometimes but with light browsing you don’t really notice it.
EE’s network coverage is the best and most stable one. I’m already using EE’s 5G network. Some areas are unstable, but 4G is good.
To my mind measuring population coverage is pointless. What counts is how much of the country is covered. I used to live in Cornwall and had excellent 4g coverage everywhere. Having moved to Surrey I have had to switch to Smarty to get any decent service. Also I wish operators would invest in more 4g coverage. Many of us do not and possibly never will own 5g phones. We rely on 3G and 4g in many countryside areas!
For everyone’s interest did you know that ee and 3 have a mast agreement where they share masts I know this because I have worked with technicians that install the equipment and they told me they are installing EE and 3 equipment on the same mast. Also did you know that 02 and Vodafone also have a mast agreement where they share masts, 02 cover and maintain the east side of the country and Vodafone cover and maintain west side of the country. I have a dual SIM phone, I have a contract with EE in SIM one and a labara in SIM two, labara piggyback on the Vodafone network so I get a signal almost everywhere. I have a Samsung phone with dual SIM always on feature this automatically transfers my phone calls to either SIM with the best reception.