Reliable, high performance mobile connectivity is essential in today’s world. Recent BT Group research produced in partnership with Assembly revealed how improved UK mobile coverage can unlock £230bn in economic benefits for the country, demonstrating the far-reaching positive impact of such connectivity for businesses large and small. Meanwhile an action-packed summer of major events – headlined by Oasis’ seven-night run at Wembley stadium which saw enough data used to stream Definitely Maybe over 900,000 times – perfectly exemplifies how important it is to us to stay connected and share the highlight moments of our personal lives.
Powering all of this connectivity is spectrum, a critical resource which allows wireless signals to travel between mobile devices and nearby cell towers – the physical backbone of EE’s award-winning network – enabling the voice calls, internet access, and data services that people and businesses rely on every day. And different spectrum bands support different use-cases – for example, in rural areas where we need to cover greater distances but with generally fewer people, we’ll deploy different spectrum to that being used in densely populated urban areas where capacity is a key challenge.
Because spectrum is a limited resource, mobile operators must continually find smart ways to use it efficiently to deliver the best possible experience – especially as mobile usage continues to increase and becomes ever more critical. That’s why when new spectrum bands are made available for auction by Ofcom, it’s important that we maximise how they are shared across operators – not just for the benefit of all mobile customers, but also in encouraging technology partners and device manufacturers to build these latest spectrum bands into their own product roadmaps.
Earlier this week, we took part in Ofcom’s latest spectrum auction – unlocking access to new high-capacity 5G bands (26 GHz and 40 GHz). These bands are designed to handle significant volumes of data and will enable uplifted mobile network capacity for enhanced customer experiences in some of the UK’s busiest locations, including sporting and music venues.
At the same time, they will also support new services and applications, such as ultra reliable high-performance private networks. As a result of the auction, we have committed to invest £13 million in this new spectrum – acquiring 800 MHz in the 26 GHz band and 1 GHz in the 40 GHz band to boost mobile performance across these areas.
As such we very much welcome the outcome of this latest auction, which is great news for our customers and a big win for the UK’s mobile future too.
