The race to bring 5G to the UK is gathering pace, and EE looks like it'll be the first to launch the new high-speed and ultra-connected service.
At a press event in London, EE announced it's set to flick the switch on 5G on May 30, cutting way ahead of Vodafone's 5G launch date on July 3.
The networks will launch in six cities - London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham and Belfast, with plans to expand to more by the end of 2019 and even more in 2020.
So far, there are four confirmed handsets that EE will offer - the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Oppo Reno 5G, OnePlus 7 Pro 5G, and LG V50 ThinQ. Many of these phones are available in various other countries so far, but this is a lot of choice for consumers compared to 5G launches in other countries, some of which only had one 5G phone available out the gate.
Pre-orders for these phones will start at some point today - when this opens, we'll update this article to let you know. Not all the devices will be available when the network launches, as Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy S10 5G will launch on June 7, but presumably some of the handsets will.
One big hardware omission is any Huawei phones - while some of the slides as part of EE's presentation use images of them, there's been no hint that EE will sell these phones. It's likely that the news that Google has cut Huawei's access to Android has caused EE to pull the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G and Huawei Mate X for now.
As well as announcing its 5G network and phones, EE is showcasing some different uses 5G could have in the real world. Niantic spoke about how the company's new game, Harry Potter Wizards Unite, will run best on 5G with the extra connectivity and reliability it provides, and Google showed how recording social video and using AR will be quicker and smoother with 5G.
EE is still in the process of announcing features of its 5G network, including what price we can expect for the handsets and the connectivity, so we'll update this article when we get more information.
More to follow.
Tech
via https://www.aiupnow.com
Tom Bedford, Khareem Sudlow
