Looking at average download speeds by country, the UK ranks 49th out of 56 countries, behind the US, France and Germany. Much of this can be attributed to the lack of investment from mobile phone companies and the ban on Huawei. This may come as a surprise considering the UK was one of the first markets to launch 5G in earnest, with EE leading the way in 2019.
Is 5G important to the UK entertainment market?
5G is critical to the UK entertainment market. 80% of British sports fans use streaming platforms just to watch their favorite team, and the number of active online gamblers now stands at 24.7 million. This will increase by 6.2% from 2022.
With that in mind, one thing to note is that while the entertainment sector benefits from 5G, it is not dependent on it. Those who don’t have access to 5G can also stream their favorite sports through Sky Sports, play slots online with Paddy Power, and watch shows on Netflix. why? Because while 5G offers faster speeds, at the moment 4G is more than capable of supporting entertainment.
Popular slot games like Legion Gold Unleashed and Gold Strike Jackpot King don’t require a super-fast connection to work, but Netflix will lower the quality of your stream to match your current bandwidth. Even sports streaming providers offer pixelated streams when the connection drops. This means your entire experience will be uninterrupted. 5G certainly offers a better experience, but it’s not necessarily important for the UK market.
European markets will phase out 3G before 2G
One thing to note is that 5G bands are not the only frequencies used for 5G deployment. While traditional networks have been shut down, sub-3GHz frequencies are still available for 5G and 4G LTE. With European carriers considering supporting his 2G and phasing out 3G networks first, it is clear that maintaining the network will involve extra costs and complexity.
So far, 21 carriers in 11 countries have retired their 3G networks, while there have been only two 2G outages. 2G is needed to support corporate contracts with various power companies, and when you combine this with the fact that the carrier is seeing less traffic over his 3G network, you wonder why such a decision is being made. It’s not difficult to understand why.
5G speeds are also slowing down across Europe. As adoption increases, so does congestion. Operators have yet to realize the benefits of implementing 5G across the board, especially given the high costs. This shows that although the UK lags behind Europe in terms of 5G, Europe is starting to slow down as well.
Although 5G is slowing down globally in terms of speed and investment, things should improve over time as adoption increases and new technologies are introduced. At the moment, the race for internet equality continues, and the process seems to be moving slowly as providers scramble to compete with each other in terms of user experience.
