Vodafone research shows UK businesses are ready to buy 5G Standalone

Nick Gliddon, Business Director, Vodafone UK, said: “Our customers are telling us they are ready for 5G Standalone. Whether it is to keep employees connected with more reliable services, or to customise their business through next-generation services such as network slicing. 5G Standalone is the doorway to innovation, new revenues, and better connection with employees. 

“We launched the UK’s first 5G Standalone network in 2023. But to bring the benefits to everyone, we need consolidation – we cannot avoid a digital divide without it. Our proposed merger with Three UK is good for customers, good for competition and good for country. It will deliver much needed scale, better enabling us to deliver the benefits of 5G Ultra to all customers, regardless of where they live.” 

The appetite to upgrade

Vodafone’s research, conducted with businesses across the UK, demonstrated there is an immediate appetite to invest in the advanced capabilities of 5G.

86% of customers suggested the rollout of 5G Standalone is either important or extremely important, with 44% stating lower latency would help business growth, while 83% would slightly or significantly increase 5G investments once advanced capabilities are available. 46% believe 5G Standalone would offer them a competitive advantage within three years by better enabling innovation.

5G Ultra can also help companies excel in the hybrid-working era. 71% stated remote working is critically important to their business. However, 32% are still struggling with the connectivity requirements of a hybrid and remote working environment. In fact, 26% stated challenges with team collaboration and communication are having a negative impact on their business, and 43% pointed to poor quality video or voice calls. 

5G Ultra can also help an organisation improve training and remote support through the integration of virtual and augmented reality technologies. Staff skills and development (45%) and keeping staff happy and motivated (39%) were two of the most common on-going business challenges.   

The UK is home to over 5.6 million private sector businesses, with almost 45,000 either medium- or large-sized, demonstrating a significant customer base waiting for the chance to innovate through 5G Standalone.

5G Ultra for business

5G Ultra offers customers access to the UK’s most advanced communications network, giving them the edge in a hyper-competitive marketplace. With increased reliability, capacity, and speeds, as well as lower latency, 5G Ultra is the best tool for the job. 

Customers with eligible 5G Ultra devices can expect: 

• Up to 25% longer battery life – help prevent the challenge of running out of battery, with up to 3 hours of improved battery performance.
• Fast 5G speeds – experience amazingly fast 5G speeds, around 10 times faster than 4G.
• Connect in busy places – make a call or use your mobile data even where it’s busy, such as on station platforms, in stadiums and at festivals. 

By launching 5G Ultra for business customers, Vodafone is supporting economic growth. The proposed merger with Three UK would enable the merged company to accelerate the expansion of this network, helping more companies, faster. The merged company plans to invest £11 billion in the network over the next decade, bringing 5G Standalone to more than 99% of the UK’s populated areas by 2034.

A platform for innovation

5G Standalone is also more than mobile.  

It has the potential to improve society and business across the UK, becoming a catalyst for new digital experiences that would not otherwise be possible.  

Vodafone has also been working with partners to understand how network slicing, a new capability introduced with 5G Standalone, can better enable UK businesses. Network slicing would allow Vodafone to create tailored connectivity services to customers, designed to fit the individual requirement of their business or use cases.  

The research demonstrated that 38% of businesses believe a network that can be customised to fit the specific needs of the business would help growth, while 24% said a lack of services tailored to their organisation’s needs is negatively impacting their business today. 

Vodafone has already partnered with several companies to prove the benefits of network slicing including: 

• ITN: By isolating a small part of the network for broadcasters during the Coronation of Charles III, ITN was able to broadcast live over the 5G Standalone network without being impacted by the crowds. 

• UK Power Networks: Project Constellation is a demonstration of how network slicing can improve the efficiency of critical national infrastructure. It helps better balance supply and demand on the electricity grid. 

• EBC: At Glastonbury Festival 2024, Vodafone provided a slice for payment terminals to protect transactions from being delayed and support real-time authentication, reducing queue times for festivals goers. 

• Gaming: Vodafone’s optimised cloud gaming slice reduced buffering and jitter, which also improved graphics rendering. Network slicing also paves the way for even more immersive gaming experiences, such as virtual reality. 

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Notes to Editors

Research information

The research was conducted by the Vodafone insight team, surveying 462 business customers across the UK, of which 24% were Vodafone customers.

What is 5G Standalone and why is it different to 5G services today?  

5G Standalone is the fully upgraded version of 5G. It offers significant benefits over 4G networks and allows companies to create new services that would have been impossible previously. 

The 5G service which has been available since 2019 in known as 5G Non-standalone. This is because some of the network has been upgraded, but other parts still rely on 4G infrastructure. There are some benefits with 5G Non-standalone, such as increased download speeds, but this is only a fraction of what 5G Standalone can deliver.

In the short-term, Vodafone’s 5G Standalone network will offer the following benefits:

• Up to 25% longer battery life thanks to a new feature of 5G Standalone known as Bandwidth Part (BWP) power saving feature, which allows the device to operate using much smaller bandwidth.
• The ability to have a better connectivity service in busy areas. Whereas 4G devices may experience buffering and lag in busy areas, 5G Standalone makes much more efficient use of radio airwaves, significantly increasing the number of people who can connect to the network at the same time.
• Vodafone’s 5G network coverage is expanding, with one million more people able to connect.
• 5G Standalone is a much more reliable service than 4G and 5G Non-standalone, because it makes use of the latest available technology and techniques to deliver services.

In the future, Vodafone’s 5G Standalone network will:

• Offer dramatically faster upload and download speeds.
• Introduce low latency capabilities, which will dramatically improve buffering and lag when connecting to the network. Latency is the time it takes for devices to connect to the cloud and react to commands. This is only fractions of a second, but the lower the latency the better the service. This is important for applications such as augmented and virtual reality (where even a fraction of a second delay could cause motion sickness), multiplayer and cloud gaming services (milliseconds count in real-time player-versus-player applications) and autonomous operations (such as robotics and self-operating vehicles).
• Enable new services such as network slicing.

What devices are compatible with the 5G Ultra service? 

The phones in the Samsung Galaxy S21, S22, S23 and S24 ranges, the OPPO Find X3 and X5 ranges, as well as the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5, are 5G Ultra ready, with more coming soon. Check the Vodafone 5G for Business page for the most recent updates on 5G Ultra-ready devices.

Where can I connect to the 5G Ultra service?

5G Ultra is available in 23 cities and more than 300 locations across the UK. We’re rolling out 5G Ultra to a growing number of locations across the UK. You can stay up to date on 5G Ultra availability in your area using our Network Status Checker. 

Why can’t my smartphone connect to the 5G Standalone service?

There may be due to a couple of different reasons.

Firstly, many smartphones simply do not have the necessary hardware inside them to connect to the 5G Standalone network. When they were designed and manufactured, 5G Standalone was not available. Only the latest smartphones will have the right hardware components.

Secondly, the software on your devices might not have been updated to allow them to connect to the 5G Standalone network.

What is network slicing?

Network slicing is a new service for business customers and application developers, enabled by the deployment of 5G Standalone networks. The service allows mobile operators to create multiple virtual network slices which operate across the same physical network. Each slice is isolated from other network traffic to give dedicated and guaranteed performance, with the features of the slice tailored to the use case requirements.

Why is network slicing important to customers?

5G Standalone promises the delivery of new services, but for many of these services to work, business customers and developers need to rely on either (1) customised or (2) guaranteed connectivity facilities.

For example, cloud and/or multiplayer gaming work best with low latency and high data speeds. Such network conditions can only be guaranteed with a customised network slice.

Transportation is another example. Communication between vehicles and other entities to enable intelligent mobility would require low latency (<10ms) to be guaranteed.

Network slicing would enable Vodafone to create maximum/minimum performance thresholds for the network deliverables depending on the use case. 

Research suggests that 25-30% of business use cases will rely on network slicing.