EE 4G tariff unveiled, and it's dear

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EE 4G Tariff

always going to charge a premium as they have exclusivity but all the same " thats expensive! "

LTE network with lightning fast speed of up to 30Mbps.

And EE thinks 500MB a month is going to be enough based on the "market research"? BWHAHAHAHAHA!! They forgot we're moving toward cloud service. They forgot we now watch more streaming vieo (i.e. iPlayer), more social networking (photos/videos sharing), etc.

I eat around 2GB a month on the bog standard 3G network. And I only pay £13 a month for AYCE data. To meet my requirements for their network, I would have to pay about £50 a month for just 3GB!

Good luck EE, you're going to need it...

Particularly as they are promoting a cloud product to store all your photos and videos for backup, via their clone recovery service

I'd rather have a slower speed than pay those extortionate prices. Already shifted 6GB of data via phone this month alone due to broadband being off for a week!

My own feeling is that its about adding something over and above 3G and with the pathetic download limits I really cant think of any application I would use on a phone that would be enhanced by 4g with these download limits. All of your current typical smartphone useage will not massively benefit from the increased bandwidth its not going to really help general browsing, facebook, email and downloading the odd app or song especially not when you compare to HSPA/HSPA+. The only real thing I could see 4G being useful for primarily is streaming/downloading video especially HD video. With these download limits its not just not pheasable to do that. I am not a EE customer and this definitely wouldn't tempt me! Throw in that Orange were bad last time I tried them, o2 has superior customer service, and three has all you can eat data!

My first ever contract was with Orange, then went to o2, was with them for 7 years until they were more interested in offering broadband than mobile phones and wouldn't offer me a decent deal to stay, so went with vodafone, now with three. I'm thinking of going to Virgin as they run off the back of orange and their sim only plans have all you can eat data.

Three mobile reception at home and work is great, when I'm out and about driving in east anglia, I'm constantly dropping in and out of signal #sadface. I have tried different modems on my galaxy s3, but still lose signal regardless.

I often wonder whether there is any technical reason for these ridiculously low data caps on both 4G and 2/3G tariffs, or whether they are pure financial artifices.
Any ideas?

On 3G one could accept the price as a way of discouraging heavy use due to the bandwidth limits per sector on a mast.

4G has much higher abilities in that area, but it seems the costs of the fibre to backhaul the data are being recovered. For a cell mast you really need to use 1:1 contention fibre services, i.e. expensive

With our survey suggesting just ~8% user more than 8GB a month, the bulk of the market fits into their tariffs. The unknown is whether people would use it more if they had better packages, or price per GB for excess was not as bad at least.

They know at the blistering speed of 4g on a 500mb allowance, you could use the monthly allowance in less time than it takes the current world record holder to run a mile.

I know, because I have read that EE has removed the danger of shock bills by redirecting people to buy a new data bundle. However, with data costing £3 for 50MB, they certainly look to get their money back!

I won't be moving over to 4g until competition see's that price drop which inevitably it will, once the hype has calmed down.

Edited by deleted (Wed 31-Oct-12 18:04:45)

If 'they' roll out 4G with a 98% coverage in a couple of years time, this may well offer some a better service than the provided by the BDUK plans for broadband. Some will want to adopt 4G instead of fixed line broadband.

Cost and contention may be decisive factors.

And pigs will fly in 2017

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

With our survey suggesting just ~8% user more than 8GB a month, the bulk of the market fits into their tariffs. The unknown is whether people would use it more if they had better packages, or price per GB for excess was not as bad at least.

I've got a 3GB limit and while I've never actually passed the 2GB mark that's only because I can't risk streaming something like a football match early in the month in case I need the data at the end of the month. If I had an unlimited package (which my next almost certainly will be) then I'd easily surpass the 3GB. Streaming from Sky Go, iPlayer and the like plus my NAS.

I just don't see EE really providing decent 4G speeds to be honest. Orange/T-Mobile never set the world on fire with 3G, so why should 4G be any different?

I guess they've got to pay for the role out of 4G masts somehow, but I just think it's a bit of a gimmick at the moment - with 4G only working in certain cities (and even then, it's not blanket coverage)

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2291294896.png
http://www.pingtest.net/result/71883207.png

I personally see 4G, especially with EE, as being a rip off. Above is a speedtest I get when I tether my ipad with my pc - connected to the Three UK 3G network. The ping might be slightly higher than a comparable fixed line connection, but it's no worse than the Virgin Media connection I had. I live less than 200m from my telephone exchange, and I still get faster speeds through Three than I do through my telephone line! (19.52mb from be there)

I don't think people quite understand just how good Three are. They absolutely destroy any other UK mobile phone network on raw speed, and it seems to be good in the majority of places - and I live in a tiny little town in a county called Rutland!

That's quite a bold statement to make. I had 3 and certainly saw worse speeds than when I was with vodafone. Their coverage was also far worse. This is in and around London. I would see 1Mbps downloads with 3.

o2 gave me 6 / 7 Mbps and vodafone now gives me around 12. The 3g service is good, especially the unlimited downloading. Their overall coverage isn't great.

In heavy metal places & indoors 3 are poor at getting coverage. This is because 1) They have a minimal amount of base stations compared to other networks & 2) Because the frequency they use is bad at penetrating buildings. o2 and voda use 900Mhz which is far superior at penetrating buildings & long distance.

This being said 3 are hard to beat in terms of price and aren't too bad when things go wrong. Also the fact that they only use 3g is a real plus.