EE has switched on an advanced version of its 4G network in Central London that is offering speeds of up to 150Mbps.
EE 4G+, which uses LTE Advanced technology, went live at midnight and offers the connectivity at 150 London sites including Shoreditch, Old Street, Southbank, Soho, Westminster and Kensington. Standard speeds are expected to be at least 90Mbps.
The Samsung Galaxy Alpha and Galaxy Note 4 are currently the only two compatible devices that can access the connectivity. The rollout will be extended to Greater London by June 2015, with major cities including Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester to follow later in the year.
EE says that, in addition to providing speeds comparable with the fastest mobile networks on the planet, the service will also add extra capacity to its network thanks to the deployment of additional airwaves.
“The UK is now back to being a world leader in mobile networks,” said chief executive officer Olaf Swantee. “Just two years since we were behind every developed market from the US to Japan, we’ve invested in innovation, driven competition and given people in London a mobile network that’s faster than almost any other in the world, and even faster than most fibre broadband available here.”
The network also announced that 19 more towns can now access 4G connectivity with Warwick being the 300th in the UK to receive the connectivity.
The other 18 new towns switched on in October were: Alexandria (Scotland), Banbury, Biggleswade, Blaydon, Catterick Garrison, Cookstown (Northern Ireland), Garforth, Greenock, Holmfirth, Limavady (Northern Ireland), Maltby, Oxted, Penicuik (Scotland), Tring, Waltham Cross, Warminster, Winterbourne, and Ystrad Mynach (Wales).
EE also says that it will be switch on a further 20 more large towns to double speed 4G by the end of this year. It already covers 20 large towns including London, Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. The service, which offers speeds of up to 60Mbps, already covers 50 per cent of the UK’s population.