EE will have 4G services in 160 UK towns and cities by the end of the year. It is switching on the service in 10 locations today, with another 19 added before Christmas.

The towns and cities that have gone live today are Bath, Bournemouth, Brighton, Cambridge, Darlington, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Northampton, Poole, Portsmouth and Redcar, taking total numbers to 141 places.

Over the next three weeks, customers in Aberdeen, Braintree, Cheltenham, Chester, Dundee, Durham, Exeter, Gloucester, Grimsby, Ipswich, Lincoln, Middlesbrough, Norwich, Peterborough, Plymouth, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Swindon and York will also have access to 4G.

EE currently have over 1.2m customers on their 4G network.

Finally someone has realized Scotland consists of more than just Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Hopefully the coverage in Northampton ramps up very quickly as I get full HSPA+ in my home but barely any 4G until I drive down the road on the way to work and then when I hit work 4G disappears again.

No 4G in the centre of Northampton either!

Happy that we have 4G now though albeit in very small area's

http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/ip...town_1_3068590

It's a shame that they have not updated their website to show the new covered places

This is good news as I visit York a lot.

Really impressed with EE4G so far, it can only get better.

Nice to see the South West (not Bristol) finally getting a slither of attention in Plymouth and Exeter - but still not really worth the extra money for those of us who don't actually live in the city and will probably not get anything for a while yet.

Does anyone know when a town/city has gone live is there blanket 4G coverage right away in the centre and or surrounding area's or does the coverage slowly expand as time goes on?

I am seeing incredibly little 4G in Northampton so the words 'roll out' seem a touch untrue in my eyes as very little 4G has actually rolled out.

Well for Colchester it was only about 4 masts from launch (June/July) which were enabled with 4G. Coverage very patchy and no 4G at all in the town centre. I would say there is at least 7 or 8 which are now enabled and the coverage is acceptable now in most places. There still appears to be work happening though as 4G appears to very slow at my work location today however 3G at home seems slightly stronger then normal with decent speeds which were previously slowish at peak times.

I'm told it expands but I'm yet to see it actually do so.

I'll check the launch maps to today's.. But I'm 100% sure it does. Edinburgh is far better covered than the weeks around launch. Belfast is another example. Saying that still not using 100% of masts in cities... Currently no need to be concentrating resources on that just now.

I didn't join until about 8 months after launch, at which time there was already pretty much complete coverage anyway. Hence I haven't noticed any expansion.

The coverage in Swansea seems to be expanding northwards from the centre somewhat. Still nothing where I live in the west (Uplands/Sketty) though. The phone sees the 4G signal but its not strong enough to lock onto.

Going through on the train, I notice there's also some coverage now in Port Talbot, but I'm wondering whether thats just overspill across the bay from Swansea. Fast though.

Cheers for that I will keep on checking and hopefully the 4G coverage will improve quickly.

Not to surprising EE have reached the point now in there rollout where rural areas are going to start getting covered and filling in dead spots in cities.

A friend who lives in burton recently mentioned to me that coverage seems to have increased around the borders so likely turning on more masts everywhere. You have to remember EE are already over half way into there initial 4G rollout they are meant to be done by this time next year.

Apparently the 4G service was switched on this morning in Ipswich, I would strongly recommend you don't use EE in the area as the 3G service has yet to start

Why would I want to wait for 3G service to start when I can already get a far superior 4G service?

A mobile broadband sim only plan on EE is £26/month for just 8GB data. What a rip off.

Keep an eye out for promotions, got £10 off this a couple of weeks ago.

Even at £10 off it seems a bad deal. £16/month on Three gives you 15GB data almost twice as much as EE's 8GB.

EE gives you 4G right now and twice the speed even when 3 come out with it.

What practical use is twice the speed?

This is for 24 Month contracts with Mi-Fi and USB sticks though, not SIM only.

Each person will have their own reasons. I for example want to download a large file in half the amount of time. If I'm waiting on it to finish so I can complete a job then the sooner it's done the sooner I can move onto the next job.

If you don't care about speed why would you care about 4G prices to begin with?

Correct, but Three SIM only plans are still cheaper than EE.


But what is the point of 4G if you only have 8GB of monthly data.