EE has announced that it intends to double its 4G speeds up to and over an impressive 80Mbps in certain areas. The inhabitants of ten UK cities will be the first beneficiaries of the speed boost. However there are no immediate plans to introduce more generous data allowances for users, according to a report on c-net today.
A tale of 10 cities
The ten cities which will benefit from the 4G speed doubling are; Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Sheffield. The extra network capacity should be in place and usable by EE’s 4G customers as soon as June. EE claims that while maximum speeds will be somewhere over 80Mbps average speeds should rise to above 20Mbps.
Gone in 420 seconds
Prices will remain the same, as will data caps. With the new headline speeds c-net reports that a contract customer on the EE “best value” tariff will now be able to burn through all their data in less than 7 minutes!
Telephone extension
In addition to the extra shot of speed, EE intends to extend its network to 80 new locations by June. The company is expecting mobile data traffic to grow by 750 per cent in the next three years. Analysts think that EE’s shoring up and development of its network may help it fend off competitors for quite a while when they get round to launching rival 4G offerings later in the year.
Concerning the new speeds and network expansion The Independent quotes a telecoms expert from uSwitch as saying “Super-fast just got even faster… speeds now more than seven times faster than 3G could convince more mobile users to make the leap to EE - particularly if 4G can price itself to look like a viable alternative to those unable to receive fibre-optic broadband in their areas.”
Just like the expert quoted directly above, most of the sources I read covering this news ended by asking readers if EE’s current pricing is justified and if it needs to shift to be more competitive. Right now the company is premium pricing for a premium service, probably every/any company with an exclusive advantage would operate in this way, more or less. Thus 4G competition will be very welcome when it arrives.
