Thursday, Jan 29th, 2026 (9:14 am) - Score 280Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has this morning announced that they’ve just switched-on their next-generation 5G Standalone (5GSA) mobile broadband network across five “major towns” in the county of Dorset (England). The operator’s 5GSA network is now live across a total of more than 500 UK locations (70% of the population, or c.49 million people). The same should hold true for the five towns in Dorset, where roughly 380,000 residents will now be able to benefit from the 5GSA network. NOTE: The upgrades are part of O2’s wider £700 million Mobile Transformation Plan. Existing 5G networks often use a Non-Standalone (NSA) approach, which is hobbled by being partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure.