EE Upgrade Mobile Capacity and Expands 5G Standalone to 15 More UK Areas

Mobile operator EE (BT) has today announced a series of upgrades to boost the mobile broadband capacity of their 4G and 5G network (e.g. re-farming 2.1GHz spectrum) ahead of the summer. Since the start of 2026, the provider has also extended their 5G Standalone (5G+) network to cover more than 50 million people across more than 610 towns and cities.

Just to recap. Earlier deployments of 5G were largely Non-Standalone (NSA), which meant they were partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure. But SA networks are pure end-to-end 5G that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better mobile broadband speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, support for Voice over 5G SA (Vo5G) calling, and increased reliability and security etc.

EE originally began launching a range of new 5G+ supporting mobile plans across 15 major UK cities back in September 2024 (here) and they’ve since been rapidly expanding upon that coverage. The operator has previously informed ISPreview that they only announce 5GSA availability once a location has “at least 95% outdoor coverage“, which helps to ensure a good level of connectivity.

Some of the most recent 15 UK towns and cities to benefit from this upgrade are listed below:

1. Aberystwyth
2. Antrim
3. Bangor (North Wales)
4. Barnsley
5. Cheltenham
6. Chichester
7. Cirencester
8. Dorchester
9. Erskine
10. Melton Mowbray
11. Merthyr Tydfil
12. Newbury
13. Preston
14. Salford
15. St Austell

The expansion of EE’s 5G+ network is said to have already resulted in a 54% increase in monthly customer usage on 5G+ during the last six months alone as more customers make use of the enhanced performance.

Greg McCall, Chief Security and Networks Officer at BT Group, said:

“This milestone shows the pace at which we’re building the UK’s most advanced mobile network. By expanding EE’s 5G+ coverage to millions more people and being the first in the world to launch new network technologies, we’re giving our customers more reliable and resilient connectivity in the places where it matters most.”

On top of that EE said they’ve also now reallocated their 2.1GHz (2100MHz) radio spectrum across more than 4,000 mobile sites to deliver greater network capacity, stronger indoor coverage and improved upload speeds for 5G+ customers, particularly in built-up areas where demand is highest. EE plans to upgrade another 5,000 mobile sites in this way in the “next few months“.

A further enhancement has recently been made to their 5G+ network after the operator became the UK’s first mobile network to launch five carrier aggregation on its 5G+ enabled mobile sites (i.e. combining several spectrum bands to boost mobile broadband speeds, primarily downloads). This upgrade was completed last month for compatible 5G+ smartphones, resulting in 10% faster downloads on average and improved performance when streaming video.

Finally, regular readers may recall that EE last year became one of the first mobile operators in the world to launch Advanced RAN Coordination (ARC) technology in their distributed mobile network (here). This enables mobile sites near to each other to remotely pair up and share capacity, boosting network performance by c. 20% without the need for additional masts.

The latest update states that EE has made further progress on the rollout of ARC, which was originally launched in Manchester and Edinburgh. Since then ARC has now gone live on EE’s 5G+ network in London and, by the end of May 2026, it will be available in more of the UK’s busiest cities including Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Sheffield.