Hey - where's my 5G?

We are still waiting for what was promised in 2019

Remember the promises made when 5G was first switched on in the UK back in 2019? I certainly do for reasons that I will come back to later but to summarise, the promise of the new generation of mobile networks was not so much about speed but capacity.

We were reminded of those times when at a football match or a railway station we just could not get connected even though our phones were telling us there was a solid 4G signal - all of that would change with 5G and not just outside but indoors too.

Five years on, I am still wondering when that promise will be fulfilled after two examples of 5G failure. On Tuesday night I was at Brentford’s GTech Stadium for the EFL Cup game against Leyton Orient. I wasn’t surprised to find the BBC 5Live radio stream on my phone shutting down as I entered the stadium and made my way to a bar - the promise of 5G indoors was always supposed to materialise a couple of years after launch but I’m still waiting.

No service - in central London

What was worse was that after the game, with thousands streaming away from the ground, my phone was flickering between one bar of 5G and none, making it impossible to call an Uber. I came across a group of fans holding their phones up and making a similar complaint. This was hardly a rural notspot - the elevated section of the M4 runs right alongside the stadium, and to be fair, at my home a couple of miles away, my EE signal is lightning fast.

Then the following day I attended what should have been the most connected event in the most connected location ever, the Boardwave Live conference of European software executives at the Institution of Engineering and Technology on the Embankment next to London’s Savoy Hotel. Yet the moment I entered this lovely building my phone signal began to fade and once I was in the auditorium, the “no service” message lit up.

When I tweeted about this I got lots of messages relating similar experiences, not just in far-flung places but right in the centre of major towns and cities. So what is going on?

30th May 2019 - the BBC goes live via a Huawei 5G router

The reason I remember so well that day of the 5G launch - 30th May 2019 - is that when I broadcast live into BBC Breakfast using EE’s new 5G network from Covent Garden, some viewers noticed that my hand was shaking quite violently. That prompted me to “come out” for the first time about my Parkinson’s diagnosis a few months earlier, and responding to all the messages of goodwill took up much of the day.

But I still spent time talking to telecoms companies and analysts who were united in thinking this was a pretty good day for the UK - for once, we were in the leading pack of nations rolling out the new technology rather than being a laggard, as had happened with 4G. Sure, many of them conceded that what was being offered at first was effectively 4.5G, but the full kit and the ubiquitous connectivity it promised would be with us soon.

Now, one issue was the government’s decision late in the day to ban Huawei and strip its equipment out of the network over fears that the company might give China control of key UK infrastructure. Then of course the Covid pandemic came along and with it attacks on 5G masts by various crazies who thought the technology was soomehow connected to the virus.

Nevertheless, five years on people who bought into the 5G promise of “everything, everywhere, all at once” have the right to feel let down. So let’s all ask the networks a simple question - “hey, where’s my 5G?”