UK telco EE has this week revealed it's on course to deploy 5G Standalone (5G SA) coverage to 99 percent of the country's population by the end of FY30.

In doing so, the carrier claims this will be four years ahead of any other UK mobile operator's projections.

In an update, Howard Watson, chief security and networks officer, BT Group, outlined how the telco intends to hit these targets.

EE wasn't actually the first of the UK's mobile carriers to launch its 5G SA network. The company was third in launching the service, behind Vodafone and Virgin Media O2, doing so in September of last year.

5G SA is a network that is not reliant on older mobile generations and solely uses a 5G core network; it will be better equipped to embrace AI.

In order to achieve its lofty 99 percent coverage target, EE claims that it's the first European mobile network to deploy a new generation of Massive MIMO units (Ericsson AIR 3284, the world's first 5G triple-band FDD Massive MIMO radio).

According to the telco, these antenna-integrated radios are able to "deliver maximum network experience and up to four times greater uplink capacity." At present, two of these units are live in Leeds, with "hundreds more to follow by the end of the decade."

Watson added that EE has now deployed more than 1,500 outdoor small cells across the country, a third of which have been added in the last year.

Despite the progress, Watson called on the UK government to launch a Mobile Market Review, as a way of looking at how the country can drive its economy through connectivity.

"A valuable next step would be for government to launch a Mobile Market Review," said Watson. "This could examine planning reforms to accelerate the rollout of new network equipment, to increase the availability of spectrum (the radio waves that enable mobile coverage), and consider removing the annual license fees currently paid by operators to use spectrum. There are also massive opportunities for the UK to accelerate the digitalization of public services and to support SMEs to make the most of new digital opportunities."

EE's 5G SA announcement this week comes a few weeks after the carrier extended its 5G SA footprint to 17 new locations.

At the time, EE said it aims to make its 5G SA network available to more than 41 million people nationwide by spring 2026.