Today EE (no longer known as Everything Everywhere, thankfully) announced that it has switched on 4G LTE service to another nine towns in England. This brings the total number of “superfast mobile technology” access enabled towns in the UK to 27. EE also claims that 4G from EE now has the coverage to be usable by approximately 45 per cent of the UK population.
The CEO of EE, Olaf Swantee said “To be ahead of schedule and covering approximately 45% of the population within just 90 days of the launch is a great achievement for our network team. We continue to bring superfast mobile to more and more people, whether they’re using their devices outdoors or in their homes and offices, and to increase the speed and consistency of our 4G and 3G network across the UK.”
The latest set of nine towns blessed by 4G LTE includes, in alphabetical order; Amersham, Bolton, Chelmsford, Hemel Hempstead, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield and Wolverhampton. EE has also increased network density in areas of existing coverage to improve the service quality and consistency.
EE claims its 4G service is around five times faster than plain vanilla 3G. It would be great to access “web on the go, download large email attachments quicker than ever, watch live TV on mobiles without buffering, make high quality video calls on the move and play live multiplayer games on the go” if the pricing to allowance ratio was more competitive with 3G and HSDPA offerings.
To help illustrate the premium on EE’s 4G offerings, the cheapest 12 month SIM-only contract on EE’s 4G service is £21 per month (unlimited minutes and texts but with only a 500MB download limit). There’s no unlimited 4G data plan but you can get the same SIM only contract but with 20GB usage a month for £61 per month! Rather high price premiums for the extra speed possibilities I think.
EE selling the 4G LTE-enabled BlackBerry Z10
One of the places you can get a new BlackBerry 10 system smartphone today is from EE. However EE have exclusivity of 4G data connectivity in the UK, so if you want this, you know where to get it!
From today the BlackBerry Z10 is “just £49.99 on a £41 per month 24 month package, with users receiving 1GB of mobile data, as well as unlimited UK calls and texts”. Small business customers can get the Z10 on the following deal: “from £41.67 on a £30 per month 24 month package, with users receiving 1GB of mobile data, as well as 1,000 UK calls and texts” (ex VAT prices).
You can read more about the new BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry 10 launch event in our coverage from last night.
