Interesting!
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That is interesting!
I also hear 3 may be very close to being the first to launch. Something to do with their purchase of ukbroadband ltd last year.
EE are a great network in my opinion. We’ve used them in work for years. Our tender is out at the moment and we will likely go with EE or a reseller or EE again.
Unless they offer an unlimited tier it’s going to be pretty useless I’m afraid. Nobody is complaining about LTE/4G speeds already, the main issue is limited data. 5G won’t change much about it, besides being able to go through your cap in even less time than before.
I wish they would offer tiers based on speed, so you’d be paying for tower capacity and spectrum occupation (as it should be) instead of “data” which doesn’t actually cost anything and is infinite.
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Three an just about hold down a decent 4G data service so how they are gonna do a 5G one is beyond me.
Hopefully data will get cheaper as a result. Can’t say I ever feel like 4g is too slow it’s more the poor coverage/connection issues. 
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They have a lot of spectrum sitting there waiting for 5G but unfortunately they can’t use it for 4G.
I have a feeling they will be just fine if they roll it or right. They are just short of usable spectrum currently and hopefully can ride it out.
Personally I use 3 and I don’t have any issues anywhere I go. I find the speeds great! If I do a speed test on EE where I live it may be returning 70mbps while 3 is returning 44mbps but I find that quick enough on a phone 
‍♂
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Good point!
I don’t really need 150mbps on my phone right now. Currently getting 30 where I am and I can watch HD video without any buffering and download songs in a few seconds.
Hopefully the pricing will come down though as they have extra capacity.
Although knowing the mobile carriers a premium will be charged for 5G to start with.
You may get 44mbps, I get this
I’m getting about 140 Mbps stable with EE in central London, a bit less on the other networks. What I don’t like is getting the bill later on - 140 Mbps means the amount grows quite fast, and the fear of the bill (or of running out of data, for limited plans) is what makes this speed pretty much useless IMO. Although I have 140mbps I often find myself falling back to some crappy WiFi just for peace of mind that I wouldn’t suddenly end up with a huge bill or no more data until the end of the month.
I’d rather be able to buy a certain capacity (10 Mbps would be plenty) for a fair price (50£/month?) and not worry about using it at all, just like a residential connection.
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Yikes! Unlucky!
Looks like I lied. It’s faster than I thought:
I think you can get just over 100 on EE here now thinking about it. But it’s all relative to my original post. As long as I can do what I need to on my phone without buffering and waiting minutes I’m not bothered what the headline speed is.
You still need WiFi for a lot of things even though these fast speeds exist. You can’t update your OS or apps over 150mb on with an iPhone on cellular.
Over 100 is quite easy on EE from my experience.
I don’t do many EE speed tests as my work phone has limited data plan. But that’s good, they have a robust network.
You still need WiFi for a lot of things even though these fast speeds exist. You can’t update your OS or apps over 150mb on with an iPhone on cellular.
Which is just Apple having pity for the carriers because their current networks would otherwise explode should an iOS update be released… they should just open the floodgates and let the carriers adapt or die (and let a better company take their place). Same reason we still don’t have MPTCP and why switching between WiFi and cellular is still a pain (instead of being seamless if it was using both networks concurrently).
It’s very difficult to guarantee a speed at all locations and all times throughout a network, particularly wireless ones.
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Surely it’s so they don’t get user complaints that their iPhones have used up all of their usage allowance.
If Apple opened the floodgates it would be no problem for the networks, just throttle the throughout to Apple servers or even just let peering links max out, it’ll sort itself out in the end.
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We’re not talking about any kind of SLA or anything either (just like residential connections don’t have an SLA, and occasional congestion would be OK and expected (just like it is now really).
The upside would be that when the network isn’t congested, you’d be able to use it fully and not worry about the bill or data cap. At 3am on a Sunday for example the towers will be pretty much empty, so they might as well let me watch Netflix all night. The tower would be using the same amount of energy and rent anyway whether I use it or not.
Surely it’s so they don’t get user complaints that their iPhones have used up all of their usage allowance.
It should be optional. I’m not saying the phone should download it in the background, but if I manually click on “install update” right next to the 500MB file size, then why not?
just throttle the throughout to Apple servers or even just let peering links max out
Seems like dangerous territory especially in Europe where net neutrality is still somewhat in effect. Peering links would never be the issue anyway though, if anything is going to explode it’s going to be on the radio side of things, way before the peering side.
Sounds like a minefield for advertising
Could you elaborate? Not quite sure what you mean and whether it’s a good thing or not.
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Sounds like a minefield for advertising
EE use to have tiered speed plans when they launched 4G. Maybe they still do…
Update:
I’ve checked and they still do. Their 4GEE plans are up to 60mpbs and 4GEE MAX go higher. Although I think there use to be a 3rd option.
Yeah they have a 60Mbps cap on the lower priced plans as well as the 30-day rolling contracts. Data is still capped as well though.
Shame you can’t get the other perks / higher data allowance on the 60mbps plans then