OnePlus, EE team up to bring 5G to European mobile devices
OnePlus and EE have announced a partnership designed to bring 5G connectivity to Europe.
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On Wednesday at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit in Maui, Hawaii, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said the partnership will bring the first commercial devices to Europe capable of accessing the next-generation network.
Fotis Karonis, executive advisor for 5G at BT Group, said the carriers were a "great fit" with similar customer bases which demand high-quality products.
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The British and Chinese carriers will release the first commercial 5G smartphone together, a OnePlus 5G flagship device, which will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform and available on the EE network.
EE intends to switch on the first 5G sites in at least 16 cities across the UK over the next year.
"EE and OnePlus have a shared vision: to give our customers the best-connected experience possible," said Marc Allera, CEO of BT's Consumer division. "We're working together on cutting-edge technology to deliver that, and we're leading the world on the journey to 5G. Adding 5G to the UK's number one 4G network will increase reliability, increase speeds, and keep our customers connected where they need it most. We have an ambition to connect our customers to 4G, 5G or Wi-Fi 100 percent of the time."
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"Our users are always eager to try new things and they are now ready to experience the next generation of connectivity and speed," Lau added.
It was back in October when the OnePlus CEO made what is believed to be the first tweet over 5G.
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The new generation of OnePlus 5G flagship devices will be available to consumers in 2019.
At the conference, Qualcomm revealed the Snapdragon 855, the latest member of the Snapdragon mobile processor family. The multi-gigabit System-on-Chip (SoC) is capable of supporting 5G networks and comes with Qualcomm's 3D Sonic Sensor, an upgrade on today's biometric scanners, the Computer Vision (CV) ISP, and enhancements to Wi-Fi, power usage, and security.