UK incumbent BT said its mobile arm EE aims to cover 99% of the population with 5G standalone (SA) by 2030.
That's four years ahead of its rivals, according to Howard Watson, BT's chief security and networks officer, which makes for a fairly ambitious target given EE's 5G SA coverage only crossed the 50% threshold in late August.
Since then, EE has shared plans to light up 5G SA – or 5G+ as EE calls it – in another 17 cities with a view to covering more than 41 million people by next spring.
Nevertheless, as everyone surely knows by now, telcos tend to start with densely-populated areas that are cheaper to cover before moving onto the more sparsely-populated ones. Therefore the general rule is that deployments become more challenging the further they progress.
