5G is live in Canary Wharf!

EE, the UK’s largest-spread mobile network has used Montgomery Square as the location-of-choice for a 5G-live test. A workplace to more than 150,000 people, Canary Wharf is an obvious choice to trial 5G as vast numbers of connected devices will be the true difference to provide realistic results.

As part of its 5G launch programme, EE recognises that high capacity zone testing is critical – Did you know there will be a further 10 locations in East London capable of 5G technology by the end of October! Businesses and consumers alike will benefit from hyper-fast speeds – No doubt, we’ll hear more about this in mainstream news as we get closer to Christmas…

For the techies out there, the 40MHz EE acquired from the 3.4GHz spectrum will use 5G New Radio – This is highly likely to be fundamental of “early” 5G networks and BT Group want to test how it behaves in a real-life setting, not just at Adastral Park. Even though Huawei has been announced as a security risk to UK plc, EE continue to test their capabilities with the Chinese giant.

Please note, Canary Wharf isn’t the sole 5G test EE has… In the last 24 months, with particular testing in labs, including the 5G Innovation Centre at University of Surrey (5GIC) and other cities like Manchester, EE has previously generated download speeds of 700Mbps and more recently, nearly 3Gb! (We don’t need the internet that fast but amazing to think what’s possible on existing technologies!) These tests were proven on 3.5GHz spectrum and last year, alongside the same Chinese giant, EE became the first major network to showcase 5G backhaul technology in the UK.

What does this mean for the construction industry and TARDIS4G?

The construction industry like most of you know is very behind the curve with innovative technology. Arguably, there are contractors such as Mace, Skansksa and Willmott Dixon that openly explore options to improve existing methods but apart from Advanced BIM, not much requires a hefty bandwidth to pass data traffic. In the years TARDIS has been providing military-grade comms systems to the sector, this level of detail doesn’t go unnoticed and although we have a direct API into the core EE network, we are actually working alongside another major network with focus on IoT for professionals on the construction site – EE is heavily focused on consumers – A VERY different marketplace!