News - EE fails to capitalise on its 4G exclusivity

[Biscuit]

Until people remember just how awful 3's customer service is (even compared to EE's, which is an achievement!) and start complaining that their "4G" speeds are sub 5mb/s as their network quickly saturates. Being the only player to offer a half-decent price plan at the introduction of 4G is suicide imo..yes you grab lots of customers on 2years+contracts, but you'll have a lot of unhappy ones.

Its really not that bad, i have already explained my experience with each provider on this thread though so i wont do it again. I think it would be foolish to assume the 3 service will fail and amount to nothing though.

So you've fallen for the marketing too then ;-)

Everything benefits from 4G/LTE because what the technology *should* eventually mean is that coverage is much better, reasonable data services are more available and there are fewer not-spots... LTE has better range and signal propagation, it supports a signal on fast moving devices better (i.e. a phone on a high speed train), latency is lower etc - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(te...tion)#Features the actual number of Mb sustained throughput is just one feature and not really the most useful one.

However what the public are being told 4G means is "what you used to use your phone for is so last century darling, watching streamed HD video when you should be watching where you're going is what all the cool cats are doing".

I didn't say it doesn't benefit at all, I said benefits very little, and i stand by it for most people. I think telling people they will load a website a second quicker, they will get their emails a milisecond quicker or that chat programs with have a tiny bit less latency will be lost on deaf ears. Mapping and use on the move you have a point, pretty hard to sell such expensive contracts based on that though!

Isnt it only lower frequencies that offer better penetration and coverage (the ones EE isnt using ), and the higher ones are no different?

[watercooled]

For mapping, you can cache a fairly large area for offline use anyway, although it's map only, no image overlay. Emails generally arrive in the background and while load times should improve for larger web pages, a lot of complex sites tend to have much more lightweight mobile versions anyway. I may be playing it down too much, but I don't see any of these services being noticeably improved, especially considering the cost premium. I commonly get 5-10Mb on HSPA+, plenty for those tasks.

As for coverage, in theory 4G should be better even given the same frequencies and power level, but coverage is not a valid reason to upgrade yet - the areas EE currently cover should already be well covered by WCDMA.

[rabbid]

Terrible, hope EE die tbh as their prices are pitiful. Its clear that EE dont understand the point of 4G/LTE, it would make more sense to push it at a low price but with a low data limit that way you pay alot for when you go over however EE are doing extremely high prices with useless data .

I currently pay £17 for my phone with data on orange (contract), since upgrading to a nexus 4 I have been looking for a good sim only contract when it ends in may however I am struggling . I get 40% off at EE/Orange and i can only get 1.5GB data for £8... absolutely pathetic I dont need many minutes I have a land line and unlimited texts is standard with contracts now. The worst part is currently EE is TERRIBLE, I go into the city center and well I get pings over 500 and data speeds of 20 - 60KB/s, that is with HSDPA+ max signal . I cannot stand EE network anymore and the fact they dont seem to support DC - HSDPA in Plymouth (or atleast the network cant handle the strain...) I really am looking at Three since they support DC-HSDPA which is already similar speeds to EE LTE and my N4 doesnt support the band EE use, think Three will be using that band in the future though .

Three will cost me ~ £11 for unlimited data and tethering... bargain. Will be trialing three for a month when this contract ends cant wait .

yeah EE rates are horrific!

three is probably the way to go, especially if you use a lot of data and can use a contract sim only solution
giffgaff and talkmobile have reasonable lighter use products for PAYG use

[crossy]

Terrible, hope EE die tbh as their prices are pitiful. Its clear that EE dont understand the point of 4G/LTE, it would make more sense to push it at a low price but with a low data limit that way you pay alot for when you go over however EE are doing extremely high prices with useless data .

Problem is that I'm willing to bet that all the other major carriers will be just as useless with their offerings. Not that I'm willing to offer apologies/excuses for EE, since personally I think they butt-humped a golden opportunity to really grab a significant amount of mind-share and market. If it'd be me I'd have done a "limited time offer" (say six weeks) with the following SIM-only deals (usual two year contracts)
Offer 1) £25/month for 1.5GB data
Offer 2) £40/month for 5GB data
Offer 3) £50-60/month for 50GB data
All with a reasonable amount of talk/texts, no tethering allowed. I also would have tried to offer something similar to existing customers - perhaps with a small (one off) payment to switch contracts.

I currently pay £17 for my phone with data on orange (contract), since upgrading to a nexus 4 I have been looking for a good sim only contract when it ends in may however I am struggling . I get 40% off at EE/Orange and i can only get 1.5GB data for £8... Three will cost me ~ £11 for unlimited data and tethering... bargain. Will be trialing three for a month when this contract ends cant wait .

My advice would be to try the local T-Mobile store, just because EE=Orange+T-Mobile don't think you'll get the same deals from both types of store. I was looking recently and it really struck me how "different" the two offerings are.
As to Three v's EE - if my experience is typical then you'll be very impressed with the speed of the Three connection. And, as I've said before, Three are the only company who seem to understand how we want to use mobile data. On the other hand, coverage is pretty damned spotty.

[Biscuit]

Problem is that I'm willing to bet that all the other major carriers will be just as useless with their offerings. Not that I'm willing to offer apologies/excuses for EE, since personally I think they butt-humped a golden opportunity to really grab a significant amount of mind-share and market. If it'd be me I'd have done a "limited time offer" (say six weeks) with the following SIM-only deals (usual two year contracts)
Offer 1) £25/month for 1.5GB data
Offer 2) £40/month for 5GB data
Offer 3) £50-60/month for 50GB data
All with a reasonable amount of talk/texts, no tethering allowed. I also would have tried to offer something similar to existing customers - perhaps with a small (one off) payment to switch contracts..

50GB

That really is pushing it i reckon. I cant see most people needing any more than 10GB realistically, and even then its seriously heavy mobile use.

I think all of them have missed a trick by not allowing users a monthly allowance roll over. So offer a 1GB contract with a 2 month Roll over for a little bit more than a 1GB contract usually would be. That was the VERY MOST anyone can have in a 3 month period is 3GB, but they can use it when and how they need it.

[AGTDenton]

Well what were they expecting with their rather pathetic 4G tariffs. My Orange contract is up in 4 months time. Will probably move to virgin as what they are offering is rather nice on the data side for existing virginmedia customers.

Virgin are offering great tariffs, but since switching from Vodafone reception is hit and miss. Considering I'm in the Thames Valley area and not some village out in the sticks it is truely terrible. I often go into London and have to use my backup phone some of the time which is on Orange. One great thing with Virgin is you are only tied in to sim only contracts for a month.

[watercooled]

Virgin use EE's network - if you're getting better reception with an Orange phone, it's probably down to the phone. I have a cheap Nokia 1208 I use on occasions where it's likely to get wet and/or knocked about, only GSM obviously but it seems to hold a signal very well. Do bear in mind however, different phones can use different scales for their reception icon i.e. full 5 bars on one phone might register as 3 bars on another.