As I write these words, seated in my home office, my phone has one single bar of 4G reception. If I go to a different room, I may see two bars.
I have repeatedly wondered why I do not have 5G reception at home. Considering it’s nearing the end of 2024, it’s a not unreasonable request given 5G launched here in the U.K. in mid-2019. I decided to find out what was going on. What I discovered was a mix of expected, and highly unexpected, reasons why 5G continues to not be available near me.
Do I live in the woods?
To help you understand why I’m confused over my lack of 5G reception, it’s important to understand that although I’m in what would be considered a relatively rural area in southeastern U.K., I am only around 30 minutes away from a major international airport and about 30 miles away from London. It’s not the back of beyond, and my closest neighbors are right next door, not 10 miles away down a winding single-lane track.
Even the few bars of 4G reception is woeful given the year and location, but things do improve when I get in the car and drive toward the the airport and my closest major towns and cities. I find patches of 5G connectivity this way, but it’s not like 4G is never seen again when I get a few miles from my home. It’s still the most common connection on my phone, both indoors and out.
My network provider is EE, which pioneered 5G in the U.K. when it launched in 2019, and I actually tested EE’s 5G out on a OnePlus 7 Pro 5G in June that year. Little did I know at the time I’d still be waiting to have 5G at home five years later. I wondered if my lack of 5G was to do with planning permission, where locals were against having more ugly phone masts put up in the area, or a basic lack of demand due to a smallish population in the surrounding towns and villages. I contacted EE to understand more.
What’s going on with 5G?
“I think the U.K. is in a pretty good place with mobile networks,” Alex Jackman, head of network communications at BT Group, which owns the EE mobile network, told me. “A lot of the underlying strength is undoubtedly from the 4G network, which now covers 90% of the U.K., and 5G has helped deliver some faster speeds and lower latency and we continue to invest in improving the capacity and coverage of it. The launch of 5G Standalone (SA), which took place at the beginning of September, will help further, providing a network at last that can be used to innovate next-gen use cases.”
Jackman then started to explain some of the key problems networks have faced with the ongoing launch of 5G over the past few years, and while one made complete sense, the other was rather unexpected.
“We launched 5G in 2019 and the direction from the U.K. government at the time around the use of Huawei equipment was that there would be no issue in using it in the core network, but there would be some changes elsewhere. Subsequently, around early 2020, that decision was reversed.”
The decision coincided with Huawei being placed on the so-called Entity List by the U.S. government, which led the U.K. government to adapt its own policies on network security.
“This would potentially cost the BT Group 500 million British pounds (about $670,500,000)…”
“This undoubtedly had a major impact [on the 5G rollout],” Jackman continued. “We said at the time this would potentially cost the BT Group 500 million British pounds (about $670,500,000) to meet the government’s deadlines. This had an impact because we were spending money changing out Huawei kit for Ericsson and Nokia kit, rather than changing Huawei 4G kit to 5G kit.”
“It’s not comment on the merits of that decision, or whether it’s right or wrong,” Jackman added, “but it is to acknowledge the tangible impact on the pace at which you can roll a new technology out when you’re having to get rid of the old one. So that was a half-billion pound unexpected cost, and undoubtedly impacted how quickly we could roll out 5G.”
More problems in 2020
The Huawei situation made sense, and although I have been fully aware of what has happened long term to Huawei’s consumer devices, I hadn’t thought much about the ongoing impact the political decisions may be having on 5G infrastructure. It was out of sight, out of mind for most of us. However, it was not the only problem 5G faced in 2020, and part of what Jackman told me next took me by complete surprise.
“The second thing [that has impacted 5G’s rollout] is COVID-19,” Jackman said. “Firstly, there were the practicalities of deployment during lockdown in terms of changing protocols, and things like whether you can access a rooftop when the building is shut down and how many engineers were allowed on site. Plus, COVID-19 impacted the workforce because people were ill, and others were affected by long COVID. It slowed down the process, and then suddenly, 5G apparently gave everyone COVID.”
Over a hundred sites across all networks were set on fire.
I laughed when Jackman said this, as he was referring to the conspiracy theories spread in 2020 linking 5G with COVID-19. But to my surprise, it was and remains far more serious than most of us would have ever expected.
“Over a hundred sites across all networks were set on fire,” Jackman told me. “It meant engineers threatened on the street, and it had all kinds of ramifications for how we try and roll out 5G.”
Shockingly, even today, the problem lingers, and there are areas in the U.K. where networks have difficulty implementing 5G because of resistance related to the conspiracy theory, but the issue is apparently decreasing. Those working in the industry state that the financial impact of Huawei and COVID-19 on the logistics of installing 5G and its reputation are some of the key reasons 5G’s rollout has slowed down.
But what about my area?
These two situations had and continue to affect 5G nationally, but what about getting the new network up and running in my local area? What’s affecting 5G on a more granular level? Jackman explained that 5G equipment is bigger and heavier than 3G and 4G equipment, and therefore, masts need to be strengthened to accommodate it, which can mean making them wider and taller.
It means adding 5G can trigger local government planning permission requirements, and Jackman noted the time-consuming backlogs that come with this situation. There are also complications around ownership of the mast itself and the land it’s built on, as further permission may need to be granted to upgrade the equipment. It all significantly lengthens the process of introducing 5G connectivity to a local area.
An aspect affecting my area (and likely others, too) is that my nearest masts produce an 1800MHz signal, which is suited to outdoor use. EE’s plan is to upgrade them with 800MHz capacity next, which may help boost my feeble indoor reception. It still won’t give me 5G, though. Furthermore, while my job ensures I’m always using the latest smartphone with the latest modems and software, others may not be in the same position. Jackman reminded me many may not have smartphones capable of receiving a 5G signal, even if the network in their area provides it, and is another reason why 5G isn’t considered commonplace yet.
Bad timing
Throughout my chat with Jackman about 5G, I got the impression the technology almost arrived at precisely the wrong time. It was met with hurdles not of its own making, and the networks faced a massive, entirely unexpected financial burden right at the time. It should have been plowing investment into getting 5G in place and working. Remember, in 2019, phone brands were pushing 5G as the technology we would all benefit from in the near future, and networks should have been racing to take advantage of all the new “5G Ready” devices.
Instead, in 2020, 5G became the least of anyone’s concern (conspiracy theorists aside), and at precisely the same time, we should have been starting to see and experience the benefits. Without much real-world benefit on display, 5G has been dealing with a serious reputation problem ever since, while networks play an expensive game of catch-up and work to move past the initial non-start with more impactful technology like standalone 5G.
Where does it leave me? It seems I’m no closer to 5G at home than I was in 2020, but having now heard the bigger picture, it is no longer a surprise that I, and likely a lot of others, are still living the 4G life.