Guernsey’s 5G Switch-On Pays Off a Long Licence Wait

JT Global switched on its first two 5G sites in St Peter Port on 18 June 2026, more than a year after the same Ericsson core went live in Jersey. The States of Jersey-owned operator said it was the first firm to publicly announce live 5G on Guernsey and set a four-month plan for island-wide cover.

Chief technology officer Alessandro Bovone blamed the wait on regulatory approvals. The radios were not the missing piece. JT had already parked a 5G core on Guernsey while Jersey was on air, and rival Sure is still rebuilding masts rather than claiming live 5G.

JT Had the Core Ready a Year Early

On 27 May 2025, JT turned on its first new 5G sites in St Ouen, Jersey, after months of trials with Ericsson. Engineers at JT’s network centre worked live with Ericsson’s global operations team to migrate Area One off the old radio layer. Full standalone 5G on Jersey was due once every phase finished, which JT then put at the end of 2025.

The same announcement said JT already had core equipment already in Guernsey and was ready to switch the radios once the Guernsey regulator set a spectrum licensing framework. That sentence is the Guernsey story in miniature. The island of about 66,000 people was waiting on licences, not on a vendor bake-off.

The kit sits inside an £80 million Channel Islands programme signed on 28 June 2023. Ericsson said the build uses its radio, transport and cloud core, including a cloud-native dual-mode 5G core, and put modernisation as complete in 2026. The deal also replaced JT’s older 4G layer, which used ZTE equipment the UK government treated as a security risk.

Bovone’s June remarks on Guernsey treated that timeline as overdue rather than sudden.

While the process has taken longer than anticipated due to regulatory approvals, we are pleased to now be moving at pace and to be the first operator to deliver 5G services in Guernsey.

Alessandro Bovone, Chief Technology Officer, JT Group

JT still sells the launch as a platform for later digital services, the same pitch it used in Jersey. The practical change on day one is a new radio layer on sites that already existed, plus Wi-Fi calling for customers who complete a SIM swap.

Guernsey Lacked a 5G Spectrum Framework Until 2025

Jersey’s competition regulator had already put 5G spectrum on a path years earlier. Guernsey did not. JT’s May 2025 Jersey note named that gap in plain terms: the Guernsey radios would wait until the local regulator established a licensing framework for 5G and later technologies.

That framework arrived as the Guernsey Competition and Regulatory Authority’s Spectrum Framework Policy in August 2025, after public consultation. JT (Guernsey) Limited and Sure (Guernsey) Limited then applied for 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz spectrum, the two bands both firms wanted for 5G across Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. The GCRA said it intended to approve both, with Ofcom issuing the UK-framework licences on the GCRA’s recommendation. Conditions listed by the authority included use-it-or-lose-it rules, coverage commitments, security and safety standards, and fair-competition terms.

The licence path sat on top of a longer 5G fight. The GCRA had accused JT and Sure of breaking competition law over a private plan for mobile networks, including future 5G. The two firms said the States of Guernsey had encouraged them to look at a single 5G network. On 18 March 2025 the Royal Court overturned the GCRA’s decision, finding the authority had not followed the process the law required. The Court of Appeal later gave the GCRA leave to challenge that verdict. Whatever the final legal end, the single-network idea did not become the model. Both operators got a spectrum path, and JT used the core it had already bought.

HOW GUERNSEY 5G WAS HELD BACK

1. 28 June 2023: JT signs the Ericsson Channel Islands programme, with modernisation estimated to finish in 2026.
2. 18 March 2025: The Royal Court overturns the GCRA’s competition ruling against Sure and JT.
3. 27 May 2025: Jersey 5G sites go live; JT says the Guernsey core is in place and waiting on a spectrum framework.
4. August 2025: The GCRA introduces its Spectrum Framework Policy.
5. October 2025: The GCRA says it intends to approve JT and Sure for 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz, with Ofcom to issue licences.
6. 18 June 2026: JT announces the first two Guernsey 5G sites live around St Peter Port.
7. 1 July 2026: JT turns on Wi-Fi calling, branded VoWi-Fi, at no extra charge.

Guernsey had also been told 5G was close before any of those dates. In 2018 JT signed a 5G plan with ZTE that aimed at a test service in 2019 and Channel Island-wide service by 2021. That date slipped, the vendor changed, and the Guernsey airwaves stayed unlicensed for 5G until the 2025 framework. Bovone’s “moving at pace” line is the bill for that stretch, not a claim that the island jumped a queue.

What Islanders Get on Day One

JT says the Guernsey network is an end-to-end mix of 4G, 5G non-standalone (NSA) and 5G standalone (SA). NSA still leans on 4G in the background, which is why a phone can flip between the two. SA has its own 5G core, which is the layer JT calls true 5G and the reason it talks about lower latency and a later services platform. The company also says early tests showed stronger signal, more capacity and lower latency, which is its own lab language rather than an independent speed trial.

The public claim is narrower than a full-island switch. JT said it was the first provider to publicly announce that broadcast sites around St Peter Port were live and that 5G could be seen on compatible devices. That wording leaves room for quiet work by others. It does not leave room on the scoreboard: as of JT’s announcement, no rival had put live Guernsey 5G on the record.

JT VERSUS SURE ON GUERNSEY 5G

Wi-Fi calling is the feature that works when the radio does not. JT includes it on mobile plans at no extra charge, it does not eat the data allowance, and emergency calls still go through. It only works on Wi-Fi inside the Channel Islands, so a cafe abroad will not carry the same trick. The phone can hand a call between Wi-Fi and the mobile network when both are available.

A New SIM Still Stands in the Way

Seeing a 5G icon in St Peter Port is not the same as sitting on standalone 5G. JT’s own hub says SA is live in Jersey and being rolled out in Guernsey, and that a customer still needs a handset that supports SA, a software flag from the phone maker, and a new SIM to activate standalone 5G. The SIM can be a physical card or an eSIM, arranged in a shop or at the next phone upgrade. JT will spread a new 5G handset over up to 36 months if the current one will not do.

WHAT A JT CUSTOMER NEEDS FOR STANDALONE 5G

• Live coverage: The radio has to be on in that parish; the first pair of sites were in and around St Peter Port, with more due through the four-month plan.
• A new JT 5G SIM: Old cards stay on the previous layer; SA and Wi-Fi calling both need the new SIM or eSIM.
• Handset software: The phone must support 5G SA, and the maker must have switched that mode on in an update.

NSA 5G can still appear on a phone that has not completed that list, because NSA rides on 4G. That is the easy icon. The SA core is the product JT spent three years installing, and it is gated. Customers who never visit a shop will keep the old experience even when a mast above the harbour is already on 5G.

Sure’s £48m Upgrade Has Not Gone Live

Sure is the other mobile firm the GCRA lined up for the same 700 MHz and 3.6 GHz path. It has not matched JT’s public switch-on. After buying Airtel-Vodafone in the Channel Islands, Sure pledged up to £48 million for a new mobile network that would include 5G, cut duplicate masts by about a third, and drop high-risk vendor kit ahead of schedule. A 2026 Sure note on the Guernsey works repeats that £48 million figure and says old masts are being swapped for new radios.

Its Guernsey 5G page is still a works diary, not a live-coverage map. Sure says it is running upgrades starting from July 2026 and describes 5G as coming later in the year. The same page tells Airtel migrants they may need a new SIM, and it dates a 3G switch-off to August. Parish rows in early September listed engineering around L’Erée, St Pierre Park, Vale and Petit Bot. St Peter Port, where JT already broadcasts 5G, still sat on Sure’s table as coming soon.

That split is the market the licence fight produced. JT used a core it had already bought and claimed the first live sites. Sure is folding two radio networks into one and asking customers to wait through street works. On Sure, a 5G-capable phone on a 5G plan is supposed to attach by itself once coverage exists. On JT, standalone 5G is a SIM event. Islanders who only want a 5G icon will care which operator actually switched a carrier on. Islanders who want the SA core JT advertised will care whether they hold JT’s new card.

The Four-Month Clock Runs Into October

Four months from 18 June 2026 lands on 18 October 2026. JT told customers to track sites, coverage and handset lists on its 5G hub. A 14 July 2026 update on that hub still described Guernsey SA as being rolled out, with VoWi-Fi from 1 July 2026. A later JT islands note said the Guernsey build was on track to finish before the end of the year, which is looser than the original four-month line. Neither note published a running site count beyond the opening pair.

The first two sites in St Peter Port remain the only locations JT has named in public. Alderney and Sark were in the spectrum applications, so the Bailiwick licence is wider than the harbour, but the live claim is still the capital. Compatible devices in that area can already show 5G. The rest of the island is a calendar, and Sure’s calendar does not yet include a live 5G date.

JT’s Guernsey launch is the delayed second half of a 2023 Ericsson buy, released once the GCRA had a spectrum rulebook and Ofcom could cut licences. The core was on the island in May 2025. The announcement came in June 2026. Sure is still on the tools in the same parishes, and JT customers still need a new SIM before the standalone network they were promised actually answers the phone.