BT Claims Europe's Best 5G Standalone Network, Readies Network Slicing Rollout

At Mobile World Congress, BT's Chief Security and Networks Officer Howard Watson declared that BT's EE network now boasts "the best 5G standalone network in Europe." Recent Ookla data supports this, showing EE achieving 67.5% 5G availability by late 2024—over 21 percentage points ahead of its closest competitor, O2.

This transformation is largely powered by BT's deployment of 5G Standalone (SA) technology, which replaces the older 4G-based control plane with a full-fledged 5G core, significantly enhancing coverage—especially indoors. At launch, the SA service reached 18 million people, covering 15 major cities. Expansion plans have since extended this to 28 million people—about 40% of the UK population—by early 2025.

The network upgrade, built on Ericsson's core and RAN hosted on BT's telco cloud, now runs efficiently on low-frequency bands. By leveraging 700MHz as the control plane and deploying comprehensive carrier aggregation across multiple spectrum bands (700MHz to 3.5GHz), BT significantly boosted both coverage and performance, including enhanced indoor penetration.

Looking ahead, BT is gearing up for static network slicing, with use cases like gaming, security, and remote work slated for launch within the year. Static slicing partitions the network for specific user groups or applications. Looking further ahead, BT is evaluating dynamic slicing—which allocates resources on-demand—though this introduces new complexities around billing and management. A future upgrade to the Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF) from Ericsson would support that capability.

However, Watson also acknowledged regulatory concerns, noting potential backlash if ordinary users see degraded service due to dedicated slices. He suggested the practical limit per cell site might be four or five simultaneous slices. BT is exploring technologies such as Low Latency Low Loss Scalable (L4S) standards, designed to drastically reduce packet latency—especially useful for ultra-responsive services like gaming.

Despite remaining behind Nordic rivals in overall 5G availability, BT's advancements signify a turnaround for the UK market—a move away from lagging behind to once again claiming leadership in standalone 5G.