back to article EE turns up speed knob EVEN FASTER on 4G spectrum

Britain's temporary 4G monopolist EE promises to "double" its network speed in twelve cities from tomorrow as the company attempts to achieve superior offerings and differentiate itself from rival operators who are set to swamp the market in the autumn. The company's boss Olaf Swantee admitted that EE wanted to "stay one step …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yawn

    Wake me up when the prices are more realistic.

    Bastards all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yawn

      And when will it be available where I live?

      So stop trying to get me to upgrade then!

  2. Microchip
    Meh

    Brilliant.

    So you can burn through the paltry allowances (or very expensive ones) even faster!

    Seriously, aside from mobile broadband usage with a dongle and PC, what's the point? The 3 SIM in my Nexus 4 has happily churned out 22mbit down and 4mbit up recently, and gets a solid 10mbit most of the time even indoors, and has a nice unlimited data package. How fast do you want your mobiles? And does this suitably eat battery life to compensate for the speed too?

    1. Cliff

      Re: Brilliant.

      22 millibit? Ouch! ;-)

      1. Microchip
        Thumb Up

        Re: Brilliant.

        That brilliant moment where you realise afterwards, and the lack of an edit button. ;-)

  3. Irongut

    LOL EE subscribers in Glasgow are lucky to get a 2G signal let alone 3G or 4G.

    Does doubling the speed count when no one can get reception?

    1. Chad H.

      Standing on Glasgow Central lower level platform now. 5 bars 3G.

  4. Ralph B

    Maybe my maths is broken, but I think that means that the basic £31/month subscriber can now blow their 500MB allowance in 2.2minutes. I'm sure they'll be pleased.

    1. Steve Todd
      Stop

      Pointless math

      You don't use your Internet connection continuously flat out for most of what you use it for. Browsing the web for example is very bursty, you want a chunk of data quickly but the quantity isn't that high per page. You should notice the higher speeds, but unless you spend your time watching video or streaming audio then most folks will be pushed to use more than 1GB in a month on a mobile.

      1. David Hicks

        Re: Pointless math

        If 1GB ~ Unlimited to most people, the EE sim-only plan is still over twice the price of their 3G competitors.

        1. Steve Todd
          Stop

          Re: Pointless math

          Who said anything about it being cheap? It will get cheaper when they get some competition, but for the moment they are charging all that the market will bear.

          Since 3G in congested areas is pretty poor then they can get away with that, but trying to use the headline speed to prove that you could theoretically burn through your data allowance in 2 minutes is as pointless as saying that at full speed you could empty the fuel tank of your car in, say, 20 minutes (that's not how most people are going to use it).

        2. h3

          Re: Pointless math

          Better performance on 3 than EE where I am (Supposedly one of the right cities).

          Here is the thing 3 has more masts 3 times as many when I did all I could to try and check. (EE doesn't seem to want to advertise this).

          They also block loads of stuff and mess with jpg's re-compressing them and do other stuff that trashes downloads. (Think Downloading a grml cd in an emergency and it costing £5 then it doesn't even boot).

          Tmobile used to be good but now EE are copying the Orange way of doing business. (By nickel and diming everything and not investing properly).

          Here is the other thing using three it feels loads faster (I routinely get 20Mb) but latency is loads less I presume due to more masts.

          1. ewan 3
            FAIL

            Re: Pointless math

            No they don't, Three and EE (aka Orange and T-Mobile) share a (2g and 3g) network. LTE latency is lower than 3G as well (at least in theory).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about giving me more than 1GB a month data?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    pity..

    ...that they can't even provide a phone signal in parts of Birmingham

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Re: pity..

      or Cardiff...

      Or London...

      In fact I do wonder sometimes if there's any major city that does have good signal with them.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Dear Sucker,

    You'll be pleased to find out, that from tomorrow onwards, you will burn through your monthly limit twice as fast. Yes! - in 4 seconds, instead of 8!!!! To celebrate this historic opportunity to rip you off further, we're offering you an exclusive change to win a bonus 35 MB extra free download, when you sign up to our all-you-can-eat 5 GB monthly package from only 59.95. Yes, that's whole 35 MB extra free on da hous. Click here to subscribe....

    etc.

  8. David Hicks

    Hmmm.

    So my 13 quid a month virgin mobile thing *still* looks like a great deal compared to anything they can offer.

    What good is vast speed when data is so pricey? Surely this should enable them to knock prices *down* and competing directly with the other providers?

    1. Gerard Krupa

      Re: Hmmm.

      It could go either way but they have also announced that from September they will be introducing multiple speed tiers. Could be that half speed will get cheaper or the new double speed service will get even more expensive.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Feel the Burn

    I have an EE MiFi, and can "happily" eat up my 5GB allowance in minutes (seconds if I even get a stable 4G signal). Glad I took out the 30 day contract not the 24 month one! If Three had better signal coverage here I'd have gone for their 15GB package for £5 less... 3G @15GB would be more suitable than 4G @ 5GB. Couple of youtube clips and you're spent. In reality - my mobile did a firmware update, my O/Hs Mac did an update (twice.............. but I'm not hear to mac bash this time... Even if it was the same update........), couple of phone aps and I was done according to EE... Previously (tMobile... Same company) told me I go no where near 1GB when trying to convince me to change from "Unlimited" data to 1GB.

    Not to mention EE keep having problems with "content lock" (a big bang theory website blocked, ann summers happy to load!?) and their system doesnt show your data useage "you're new to EE!"... No I'm not..... (you have to guess... or wait for their text message telling you "you used 5gb in 3 nano seconds".) and the "my ee" login page was still down at lunch time...

    Anonymous because I need to hide my shame at buying an unsuitable product as an early adopter.

  10. Steve Todd

    I keep on making this point an the resident commentards keep ignoring it

    In a busy city 3G performance is crap because of all of the other users in the same limited area. A friend is currently doing some work in London and he commented how much slower his Three service is, but Three isn't unique here.

    4G does two things. It allows much higher capacity in urban areas (where smaller 2.6GHz cells allow for tighter packing and higher bandwidth) and it gives better rural coverage than 3G on 800MHz (allowing the networks to add 4G to their current 2G base stations rather than having to build out lots of new ones). Once we get some competition then prices will come down. Until then if you need the performance then you'll pay for it.

    1. Eponymous Cowherd
      Thumb Down

      Re: I keep on making this point an the resident commentards keep ignoring it

      "Once we get some competition then prices will come down. Until then if you need the performance then you'll pay for it."

      Hmm, once we get some competition, not "once there is competition"?

      Vested interests?

      1. Steve Todd

        Re: I keep on making this point an the resident commentards keep ignoring it

        No, we as in we the consumer. I don't work for any of the players in the mobile industry.

  11. Ace Rimmer
    Thumb Down

    OfCom should have given the "4G" to 3 so that the high speed would make sense with their unlimited data plans. As others have pointed out, all this means is the data allowance will get used in a very short time as people default to higher-def video etc to take advantage of the speed and then get stung to bits by the charges for going over. It's a similar business plan to the ones used by drug dealers, but drug dealers are less sneaky and more reputable.

  12. PaulR79

    4Gzzzzzzzzz

    Fantastic! I can hardly wait to use this and I don't even mind the cost because unlike 3G this will bring about a revolution in the mobile market. What's that? It isn't available where I live yet? Oh that's ok I'm sure they will be soon and I can check that on a list. There's no readily available list that shows planned rollouts? Alright but surely they have decent allowances compared to 3G at least as a means to compete with cheaper and far more widely available coverage. No?! What the hell do you mean no? What is the appeal then??? I can pay more for less and with shorter battery life???

    Hang on a minute I'll be an early adopter and can brag to my friends and co-workers? Why didn't you say that sooner. Here, pillage my credit card and don't forget to charge ludicrous amounts outside my allowance that make it cheaper to call the UK from abroad than if I was at home.

  13. Darren Barratt
    Facepalm

    Stupid pricing set by bean counters.

    What they should have done was actually match or undercut the best 3G pricing out there. Once the customers are switched over to 4G, then you put the prices up. Anyone who can do the speed * tiny allowance sum is avoiding them like the plague.

  14. Brenda McViking

    I'm on 4G in Canada

    I get a 1GB allowance, and you know what? It's enough. It's nice to be able to get a decent speed - downloading app updates doesn't take forever, and when I need something sent from personal to corporate email, it goes in seconds, not half an hour. Whilst I look forward to the Singaporean phenomenon of streaming TV to your mobile on public transit on your way home, we're still not there yet, but it's where we're heading.

    Competition in pricing from O2 and Vodafone ought to be felt by Christmas in the UK. I can wait.

    1. jungle_jim

      Re: I'm on 4G in Canada

      I recall plenty of signal loss on the MRT in SG

  15. Pirate Peter

    but no nokia 925??

    so, 3 and vodafone have had the nokia 925 for several weeks, the EE store in lakeside claimed not even to know of the 925 despite posters outside their shop for the 925 on vodafone

    and they wondered why i walked?? if they are not aware of the latest phones how can i be sure they know their latest tarrifs??

    i am disappointed at EE and T-Mobiles offerings so will probably not upgrade early, but wait til i can jump to 3, cheaper tarrif, no download limits £31/month and 925 is free, t-mobile judging by 920 tarrifs £31/month gets me less than GB data and around £149 cost for phone on top

    speed means nothing, if the basic amount of data is so small and then punative excess usage charges apply

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