EE UK Trial of 5G Small Cells Hits Broadband Speeds of up to 600Mbps
Mobile network operator EE (BT) has today announced that they’ve now deployed over 1,000 small cells (mini radio masts) across the UK, marking 400 new deployments over the last 12 months. But this now includes the provider’s first “trial” 5G (mobile broadband) enabled sites, which have been installed in Croydon (London).
Unlike larger base stations and masts, shoebox sized small cells are only designed to deliver limited coverage over a shorter distance and thus tend to be more focused on busy urban areas (e.g. shopping malls) or specific sites (e.g. airports and ports). But they can also be used to improve coverage in parts of some rural communities. Such kit is often positioned on the side of buildings or street furniture (e.g. lamp posts, CCTV columns and street kiosks etc.).
In the last year, EE has expanded its small cell estate to towns and cities including Cardiff, Dundee, Luton, Norwich and Stoke-on-Trent, as well as continuing to improve capacity in summer hotspots like Torbay and Cumbria. But until now these have only been 4G radios.
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However, EE’s first 5G small cells have recently gone live as part of a trial taking place in the London Borough of Croydon. A total of 7 sites, including 4 along Croydon’s London Road – a busy thoroughfare lined with businesses, shops and homes – are now supporting the local community, seeing over 3TB (TeraBytes) of total traffic each day.
Greg McCall, BT Group’s Chief Networks Officer, said:
“Small cells are an integral component within our mobile network, ensuring that even in the busiest places our customers have access to the full performance of the UK’s best network. To reach 1,000 deployments, including our first 5G sites, demonstrates our commitment to delivering unrivalled mobile connectivity to all four corners of the UK.”
Jason Perry, Executive Mayor of Croydon, said:
“We’re delighted to be the first town in the UK to be trialling 5G small cells with EE … These 5G small cells will improve the network capacity in high-usage areas, giving faster download speeds for our residents, businesses and visitors.”
According to the operator, their 4G equipped small cells can deliver mobile broadband speeds of “up to” 300Mbps, which rises to 600Mbps on their new 5G kit, although this should be taken with the usual pinch of salt because individual user experiences can vary considerably. But at the time of writing it remains unclear quite how many 5G small cells the operator plans to deploy (post-trial) and over what timeframe.
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.
I’m guessing what EE has deployed is the following spectrum on both 4G and 5G:
* B3 15MHz (EARFCN 1791)
* B7 15MHz (EARFCN 3026)
4G ones should definitely be correct since those frequencies are on my local 4G micro cells (41251, 41252, 41253, 41321). I think 5G would be these frequencies:
* n3 20MHz (using EE’s lower 20MHz block)
* n78 40MHz (using EE’s lower 40MHz block)
“coupled with unlicenced 5GHz spectrum” sounds like oncoming problems in domestic wifi busy areas. I bet they will be using modulation killing home wifi.
There’s no such thing as unlicensed spectrum in the UK. There are license exempt bands where equipment must be certified to work within the interface specifications. There is also no 4G kit on 5GHz, so the note is a bit wrong
Technically, EE has been seen deploying band 46, although I don’t actually buy it for 5 seconds. I’ve never seen B46 personally from the EE micros we’ve had (which has 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi instead).
I’m fairly sure B46 displays on EE on Cellmapper, although you won’t actually find any masts using it and Wikipedia also lists it for some reason.
I believe it was worded wrong anyways, since EE’s standard B3+7 deployment on micros would theoretically provide those 300mbps speeds.
EE doesn’t own any spectrum in the Band 46 range. It’s very likely someone broadcasting a cell mast or stingray in the wrong frequencies.
Private 5G doesn’t use EE’s MCC and MNC.
EE does deploy B46 on some of their Nokia small cells, I don’t believe it’s on that many but Pedroc made a video about a few years ago (that’s probably why it’s mapped on CellMapper).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47msNBAwd90
This needs boosted out to island communities. Cruiseship season in Shetland and the large cruise ships just suck all the 4g signal all summer.
That will make some people happy who think that 5G is dangerous, I hope they put those mini masts way out of reach.
Nonsense! 5G isn’t dangerous health scare!
@Phil, I never said it was, but there are plenty of people who do, and masts have been damaged or set on fire in the past.
3TB a day?!?! Is someone just running constant speedtests?
Bit mental…
3TB isn’t that much as a daily total for a modestly fast broadband network that’s being used by a fair few consumers. But I’d add we don’t know the specifics of the coverage area for this figure.
EE are behing the curve, Three have had 5g at over 500 meg for milenia
This is with a small cell.
Three may have fast 5g, but the cells are small and you’re lucky if you get it at all. Where I am (a mile from the M25 in Surrey) EE gives consistent 300Mbps+ on 4G-CA and more on 5g. Vodafone delivers at best 20Mbps on 4G (it stops completely in the evening even with 4 bars) and officially worse on 5g. Three only offers slow 4G and O2 the same. So apart from EE they are all rubbish.
Who do we have to contact to have one of these installed on our office site? We’ve been struggling with EE, we’d be more than happy to have one of these masts on site, but EE don’t care… And to think we’re on a corporate account with them…
But you only get high speeds if you pay for the expensive plans. Otherwise you’re capped to 100mbps.
I left EE for three and whilst the service is worse at least the speed is faster in areas where service is good.
Looking forward to the three Vodafone merger.
600Mbps means that at 6 users can get 100Mbps each. This is useful, no matter what.
Speed caps are annoying, I agree…
You could’ve gone to 1pMobile and stayed with EE’s network but pay less and are unrestricted…
the newest thing EE has lol ,, nothing new since it was orange an t moble lol
I live in Towcester Northamptonshire, We have a terrible mobile signal. Also I have a static caravan in Moortown Lincolnshire which also had seriously bad mobile coverage. When will signals improve.
Maybe deploy 4G to everywhere first before focussing on 5G…
I agree with that, while 4G is OK here, in some parts of the city it is awful., the sad thing is according to people I chat to that have 5G, that is worse.
I find myself using public Wi-Fi because of the quality of 4G in some places, I know I have a VPN, but i still prefer not to.
Yep, I find 5G to be just as bad as 4G in some places, and 4G can sometimes be faster if it isn’t congested. The switch off of 3G has just made it worse…
The national coverage for EE is the worst I’ve known it to be, as a field engineer I have covered large areas of the UK, the signal is usually good, but recently it’s absolutely terrible, one and two bars of poor quality calls/signal.
Think they should be investing in the larger network before this.
Yep, I switched back to Vodafone from EE and it’s like night and day. Yes, there is still a slight issue with EDGE on VF, but it seems more reliable compared to EE in Devon.