Rating: New brand for 4G still to be revealed
EE‘ s CEO, Olaf Swantee, has just announced the date when his company’s 4G network will start commercial operations. It’s October 30th – not 23rd March [2012] as previously reported. Swantee describes it as the UK’s first superfast mobile 4G and fibre broadband service. That’s because as GoMobile News was surprised to discover, UK Broadband has been offering a 4G service* since February 2012. According to Mark Newman, chief research officer with Informa Telecoms & Media, EE (formerly Everything Everywhere) is going to launch a major national advertising campaign in the coming weeks. “The combination of an attractive new brand, faster speeds and the iPhone 5 (which will operate on the 4G network) is going to be a pretty compelling proposition,” Newman commented.Swantee claims, “This is a significant milestone for the United Kingdom, and for the people and businesses of our country who will now be able to enjoy the huge advantages of superfast 4G technology for the first time.”
He added, “We are very proud to be pioneering, innovating and leading our industry in launching 4G for our nation through our new EE brand.”
The full list of handsets available at launch includes Apple’s iPhone 5 (naturally) plus the Samsung Galaxy SIII LTE, Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Lumia 820, HTC One XL and the Huawei Ascend P1 LTE.
EE says its 4G service will cover a third of the population Q1 2013and its fibre service will be available to more than 11 million households and businesses by Q1 2013.
* UK Broadband operates a TD-LTE network in the 3.5 GHz frequency range. It’s LTE so it therefore counts as 4G!
