Vodafone has today (Sep 20) announced it will have a thousand 5G sites by 2020 after the company went into depth its plans to roll out 5G to rural areas.
The operator announced it will launch 5G testing in Cornwall and the Lake District this year. It already has identified seven UK cities where it will test 5G: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Manchester.
The testing in rural areas will reveal how connectivity can be improved in isolated parts of the country.
Rivals have also launched their own 5G testing schemes. O2 announced this year it has transformed the entertainment and music venue the O2 Arena into a ‘5G beacon’, while EE is testing 5G near its base in St Pauls.
So far, only Korean operators have established a timescale for commercial 5G launch. South Korea’s three largest operators SK Telecom, KT and LG U+, will launch simultaneously in March next year in a collaborative effort.
Vodafone demonstrated its 5G network today (Sep 20) by making a 5G holographic call (pictured) between HQ in Newbury and it’s base in Manchester.
Vodafone UK chief executive officer Nick Jeffery 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.”