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[Bowdon]

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/09/government-hints-at-future-uk-5g-mobile-testbeds-and-trials.html

The UK Government has this week posted a brief update on their £200m national 5G Testbeds and Trials (5GTT) programme, which summarises all of their existing projects to test the future ultrafast wireless broadband technology and also hints at their plans for the next 12 months.

The first commercial deployments of 5G Mobile and Fixed Wireless technology, which with the right radio spectrum is capable of achieving multi-Gigabit broadband speeds, are expected to get underway toward the end of 2019 via EE (most likely using the 3.4 – 3.5GHz bands). But initial hardware support will be very limited and large-scale deployments won’t start until Ofcom has released more spectrum by 2020 (e.g. 3.6GHz+, 700MHz etc.).

Meanwhile the Government’s 5GTT programme has been busy testing various applications for the new infrastructure. So far around £16m from the budget has already been invested to setup one of the first end-to-end 5G network’s via 5GUK, which was completed earlier this year.

Since then they’ve also allocated a further £25m to six other trials across the UK and recently began a £35m project to deploy the service on the Trans Pennine rail route between Manchester and York in England. The funding for the latter actually comes from a different source as it’s a joint effort between the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme, 5GTT and Network Rail (NR).

Elsewhere they’ve allocated £5m to consider business models for using 5G connectivity on the UK’s roads (currently still in the design phase), £10m to help test or prove the security of future 5G networks and last week splurged another £25m to support the country’s first “large-scale” multi-city 5G deployment in the West Midlands via the Urban Connected Communities project.

    5G Sector Testbed and Trials Projects

    These projects will be explored in the Autumn of 2018, with activities expected to commence in 2019. We expect industry organisations to partner with the telecoms industry, the public sector, and academic and research organisations to build the facilities for the trialing of applications, services and products that will develop the 5G ecosystem in those chosen sectors.

    We envisage that these projects will focus on the manufacturing and logistics sectors, though we will also consider proposals from other sectors. Trials involving other sectors, such as health and social care, could also form part of the Urban and Rural Connected Communities projects.

[Bowdon]

My only concern about 5G, as with 4G, is the data restrictions the mobile companies still put on their packages.

If data caps were lifted then mobile Internet could be a viable alternative for a landline connection.

Why does mobile broadband still have data caps? Why haven't then progressed along like landline data / limits did and eventually were removed? Or is it just an evolution thing and eventually they will be removed too?

[dee.jay]

The data caps are useless on high speed packages. I often stream Sky Go when I am away - F1 fan - and a full race can consume 5-6GB easily. I have between 80GB between my, my wife and my work contracts, but I still think the caps are a bit daft.

I think 3 do "all you can eat" but the speed just isn't there.

[j0hn]

If data caps were lifted then mobile Internet could be a viable alternative for a landline connection.

Why does mobile broadband still have data caps? Why haven't then progressed along like landline data / limits did and eventually were removed? Or is it just an evolution thing and eventually they will be removed too?

If they lifted the data caps the service would quickly be over saturated and crippled.

Unlike with traditional broadband where you can just add another backhaul pipe when demand/usage increases, 4G has limited spectrum.
They would need to reduce power/reach of masts, and build many more masts, to be able to offer unlimited data the way you want.

All that extra equipment needs paying for and that may significantly increase your mobile bill.

They don't have the caps on data just to screw the customer. It's a necessity to keep usage at a level where the equipment can keep up.

4G as it is deployed by mobile operators in the UK isn't suitable as a permanent replacement for everyone's broadband. It never will be.