Virgin Media O2 switches on its 5G standalone network in Manchester

Virgin Media/O2 (VM02) have switched on its 5G standalone network in 14 places in the UK including Manchester.

This means that 5G does not need to rely on 4G anymore and offers much faster data speeds and low latency which means the IOT (Internet of Things) is here now.

Automation and advanced robotics will be just around the corner which sadly means job losses as we start to rely on these robots to do our work saving money for the employer.

Having standalone 5G though means a network will have to have lots of 5G Millimetre wave antennas which will be put on lampposts and other infrastructure.

The difference between the 5G you know now and standalone 5G is much different, for example the frequency of a huge ugly monopole is 3.8GHz where as standalone will be between 30GHz to 300GHz.

Other networks will follow soon giving people faster data speeds, it was thought that you would need a mobile phone with the right antenna inside to get 5G Millimetre Wave however we have seen that a network can activate the service via a special sim card.