EE to double London 4G speeds
EE ‘the UK’s biggest and fastest network’ has confirmed that it is to further increase 4G speeds in London during the course of the summer.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress last week, EE CEO Olaf Swantee noted that the company planned to double its 4G network speed to 300Mbps. Using the large amount of spectrum available, the company will be able to upgrade to LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). This faster network has been dubbed ‘4.5G’ and it is believed that it will offer an extra level of speed that is so far unheralded in the field of mobile networks.
Speaking about LTE-A, Mr Swantee said: “We’re working with Huawei on that. It’s really exciting actually. We will have a 300Mbps in London. First we will have the city centre covered, London south circular. That will probably be by the end of the summer.”
Once the network has been rolled out to south London, EE will proceed to cover the rest of the area within the M25; hopefully, the close of the year will see the whole of the capital being able to access the new faster network speeds.
As part of his announcement, Mr Swantee was keen to emphasise the importance of ‘voice’ in terms of achieving the right results in the mobile coverage market. He noted that “network differentiation is not possible without voice”, adding that voice should not be treated as a commodity. EE will focus on improving voice in more rural areas over the next year.