The UK cellular provider EE has launched its 5G cellular network in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, and Manchester, increasing internet speed far beyond the technology's previous generation.
One of the very first to showcase it, was the BBC when it went live to broadcast the 5G technology wirelessly.
The BBC's Clive Myrie was attempting to talk to a reporter about the launch of 5G whilst using the technology to broadcast live from London's district of Covent Garden.
However, somewhere between the broadcast, the British public service broadcaster quickly experienced its bandwidth burning through its data plan, delaying the broadcast by about 15 minutes.
It was said that the broadcast was running on a 40Mbps connection, or only one-twentieth of the 800Mbps speed EE said it had seen in its 5G testing.
The presenter apologized to viewers saying that, "I'll have to interrupt you because bizarrely the 5G line isn't working properly".
5G networks are slowly but surely coming to the masses.
With the technology promising to deliver unprecedented bandwidth, those who get to experience it first, often shared benchmark videos and screenshots of gauges running into hundreds of megabits and gigabit speeds.
As BBC demonstrated in an earlier segment, 5G network allows users to watch broadcast with finer video quality with no compression artifacts or hiccups, or some random freezes frequently found on live broadcasts streamed over 4G networks, for example.
But EE’s first 5G networks aren’t perfect.
According to BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones, there are two major issues concerned with the roll out of this technology to the public. The first is the network's patchy coverage and availability that can greatly affect speed.
Cellan-Jones showed that his 5G connection speed went up and down depending on where he stood.
The second problem is how quickly it can go through a data plan, which apparently happened to the reporter during the live broadcast. While waving a phone showing a 260Mbps connection speed, the issue was a sign, said Cellan-Jones said, explaining the bandwidth-hungry 5G.
EE is a division of British telecommunication giant BT.
By launching the next-generation 5G mobile networks, the company promises almost instantaneous data transfer, with aims to make the technology the central to Europe's economy in strategic sectors like energy, transport, banking and health care.
EE announced that it would launch its 5G network to the public, but would not sell Huawei's first 5G phone, the Mate 20 X 5G.
The Chinese company faces pushback in some Western markets over fears that Beijing could spy on communications, and gain access to critical infrastructure if allowed to develop foreign 5G networks offering instantaneous mobile data transfer.
That decision comes amid a trade war between the US and China.
However, Huawei still provides 5G wireless network infrastructure equipment to EE.
