So what is EE offering?
EE has launched services in 11 UK cities,
and wants to have 16 by Christmas. This includes most of the majors, such as
London, Liverpool and Birmingham.
For
existing EE customers, Allera says that the new network will function much as
before.
Marc Allera, Chief Sales Officer at EE told
What Mobile that the company is expanding its network by 2000 square miles per
month, and expects 20 million Britons will have access to 4G by Christmas. EE
wants its network to be available to 98% of Britons by 2014.
‘It’s been around a year of hard work arid
planning on the technical side, there was making sure the network was ready for
4Q working with the regulator to ensure we could launch on the spectrum that we
had, and working with the handset manufacturers,” he said.
For existing EE customers, Allera says that
the new network will function much as before. You won’t need to break any
existing contracts with T-Mobile or Orange, but can simply upgrade their
existing contracts to 4GEE.
Much
of the criticism leveled at EE ‘s 4G thus far has been in terms of the costs of
its plans and the limited data allowances.
Data plans already being criticized
Much of the criticism leveled at EE ‘s 4G
thus far has been in terms of the costs of its plans and the limited data
allowances.
One of the unfortunate ‘problems’ with
having a faster mobile network is that data is consumed much faster. 4G LTE
remains a new technology and thus Wi-Fi remain focused on early adopters and
power users.
Power users, by definition, chew through
the data. Testing EE ‘s 4G network, What Mobile managed to download a 500MB
movie in about 2-3 minutes.
For
those who prefer using 4G on a laptop or other device, a Huawei dongle is
available with 3GB of data, $23.9 a month (18 month plan) with an upfront cost
of $74.9
To be honest, if you’re just texting,
calling and checking the odd email, 4G is probably not of any use to you
(despite what the marketers say). li anything, it could be worse due to the
poor coverage. EE’s cheapest plan is $54 per month, for 24 months. This comes
with just 500MB of data. Additionally, these plans have an upfront cost for the
handsets; an iPhone 5 and a Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE will cost $269.9 and $224.9
respectively.
For those who prefer using 4G on a laptop
or other device, a Huawei dongle is available with 3GB of data, $23.9 a month
(18 month plan) with an upfront cost of $74.9. There is also a personal Wi-Fi
hotspot more useful for iPads, or for multiple devices at once, going at around
$38.9 per month (18 months) with an 8GB data allowance.
The hotspot in particular may appeal to
users edgy about upgrading, as you can tether your existing smartphone (on any
network) to the personal hotspot via Wi-Fi an enticing option for those not
wanting to change network.
By way of comparison, Three Mobile, which
has built itself up as a data-first mobile network over the past 18 months,
offers its all you can eat ‘One Plan’ for $54 per month (plus $148.5 up front
for the iPhone 5 or $43.5 upfront for the S3). This uses Three’s l-{SPA+
network, which offers speeds similar to the low end of 4G LTE, and better
coverage.
EE also offers HSPA+ (or 3.5G) for those
out of 4G range.
T-Mobile’s Full Monty offers unlimited data
for the same price, Orangers all you can eat data option is $76.5, Vodafone
doesn’t offer unlimited data (its largest data plan, 2GB Red Data Plan, costs
$70.5 per month with an iPhone or S3). 02 is identical to Vodafone, no
unlimited data, $69 per month for 2GB data.
EE does offer bolt-on data additions, or
can move users to a higher tariff Bolt ons start at $9 for 500MB. This kind of
marketing ploy may seem cynical to the casual observer, but to be fair, we’ve
seen this behavior on 3G for years. Allera says that EE isn’t out to ensnare
anyone.
“One of the most important things we wanted
to do was offer customers piece of mind. There are alerts once you get to 80%
usage. You also can’t overrun it, and there are no penalty fees. No one’s going
to come home to any surprise bills,” Allera said.
Do we really need 4G speeds?
It’s easy to sit back and look at the proposition
a new network, patchy reception, patchy speeds, high prices and data caps and
be cynical.
Mr. Allera disagrees, adding that it is as
much about current use cases as the ones in the future we haven’t even
discovered yet.
Mr.
Allera disagrees, adding that it is as much about current use cases as the ones
in the future we haven’t even discovered yet.
“Our 4G isn’t really for people to sit
there downloading 20GB of movies, like they would on their computer at home.
Even our T-Mobile customers that are on our Full Monty plan use on average 1GB
of data that’s enough for 90% of consumers,” said Allera.
One argument is sound however, just how
much above 4Mbps do you actually need on a mobile? That’s already fast enough
for HD video. Given that most of EE’s marketing and advertising has been
focusing on these high data usage applications, such as online gaming and video
is EE creating unrealistic expectations?
However,
we deliberately didn’t come out with a set of extremely expensive price plans.
“I don’t think that users are going to jump
on 4G and radically change their behavior. I’m going to do what I’m doing
today, and hopefully get some time back in my life, because browsing,
downloading and sending and all the stuff I do today on 3G is just going to get
five times faster. Yes there are going to be some consumers using a lot of
data, but they’re in the minority,” Allera said.
“I don’t have a crystal ball on how fast
data is going to grow. However, we deliberately didn’t come out with a set of
extremely expensive price plans. To start a 4G service at $54 pounds... when
you look around the world we do think it’s the most competitively priced 4G
services in the world.”
