Glasgow to trail 5G mobile network

20 June 2018, 17:31

Glasgow has been named as one of seven cities to become trial areas for a 5G roll-out.

Vodafone UK will introduce the fifth generation wireless systems between October and December this year.

The mobile operator says it will form part of its investment in building a "world-class" network infrastructure to support Gigabit UK, where

users can access ultra-fast connection speeds of one gigabit per second.

In addition to Glasgow, engineers are laying the groundwork for 5G at more than 40 sites in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, London

and Manchester.

Discussions with enterprise customers are also under way which could lead to the testing of new 5G applications such as augmented and

virtual reality in offices, factories and hospitals.

The 5G trial was announced on Wednesday after Vodafone won the largest block of 5G spectrum in the recent auction.

The company says the coming trials will ensure it is ready for the commercial launch of full 5G in 2020.

Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK chief executive 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."

The Gigabit UK programme also offers customers "superior fixed broadband" using gigabit-capable fibre connections

Seven cities - Aberdeen, Coventry, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Stirling - will have access to Vodafone

Gigafast Broadband towards the end of this year.