Vodafone to bring more 5G trials to London from October this year
Vodafone will launch its own 5G trials in seven cities across the UK, including London, towards the end of this year.
Customers in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester will also be able to try out the new spectrum when trials are rolled out between October and December.
Infrastructure work is already being completed at more than 40 sites across the UK to prepare for 5G.
The trials will ensure sites are ready for 5G’s commercial launch, which is expected to be around 2020.
Vodafone won 50 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at the recent Ofcom auction, paying £378.24m, the most of all UK mobile operators, for a portion of the 5G network.
Read more: Mobile phone giants buy 4G and 5G spectrum in £1.4bn Ofcom auction
Vodafone UK chief executive Nick Jeffery said:
We want to make 5G and new fibre broadband services available to consumers and business throughout the UK, delivering a Gigabit society for all. We will also be bringing ultra-fast 4G to several hundred sites in hard to reach rural areas this year, building on our position as the network that offers the best voice coverage in the UK.
Alongside the 5G announcement, Vodafone’s Gigabit UK programme will also offer customers better broadband with full fibre connections set to be rolled out in Aberdeen, Coventry, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Stirling.