Tariffs for 4G, announced by EE today, start at £36 per month for smartphones, £15.99 a month for dongles and tablets, and £15 for fixed broadband
EE, formerly Everything Everywhere, has today (October 22) unveiled the UK’s first 4G tariffs.
Consumer tariffs start at £36 a month for 500MB of data, unlimited calls and texts on a 24 month contract.
For £41 per month customers can increase their data allowance to 1GB, or £46 per month for 3GB of data. 5GB costs £51 and 8GB is £56. All prices include VAT, and consumers will be reminded via text when they are near their data limit and given the option to buy more.
A 12 month SIM only option will be available from November 9. It also includes unlimited minutes and texts, and prices start from £21 per month.
For small businesses prices start at £30 per month, per person. This includes 1GB of data, 1,000 texts, 1,000 minutes, VoIP and tethering (as part of the data allowance) as well as WiFi. For £35 a month each member of a small business can use 1GB of data with unlimited texts and calls. For an extra five pounds, this goes up to 4GB, and for £45 and £50 users will receive 8GB and 16GB allowances respectively. All contracts apply for 24 months.
Companies can also choose a 4GEE Sharer Plan, which allows sharing of data allowances across all users and devices within their businesses, and includes calls to colleagues and landlines. These cost £15 per user, on top of which businesses can choose to pay £20 per month for 4GB of shared data, going up to £320 per month for 64GB to share between employees. For £160 a month for example, small businesses can share 32GB of data.
Businesses can also share minutes and texts, paying £20 a month to share 1,000, right up to £200 for 10,000.
EE today also gave details of the price of 4G fixed broadband, which will start at £15 per month for a 40GB allowance. For £20 a month, there is no limit on data use. Both these deals promise speeds of 38Mb/s. But for £25 per month, you can download an unlimited amount of data at a speed on 76Mb/s. For all three price plans a £50 connection fee applies and the contract is for 18 months.
Prices for the broadband service for small businesses are slightly higher and do not include VAT. Unlimited data with a speed of 38Mb/s costs £22, for 76Mb/s small business users will pay £26.50 per month.
Mobile broadband, for dongles and wireless devices such as tablets, starts at £15.99 per month for 2GB of data for consumers (including VAT) and £13.33 per month for small businesses (excluding VAT). Consumers will pay £20.99 per month for 3GB, small businesses £17.49. Five pounds more will get consumers 5GB, while this allowance is priced at £21.66 for small businesses.
Other services announced include EE Film, which, like ‘Orange Wednesdays’, will offer two for one on cinema tickets. With this service, customers will also be able to download or stream a film, each week, on EE, without impacting their data allowance. Further films can be downloaded or streamed with prices starting at 79p.
EE CEO Olaf Swantee said: “With our new brand and unique 4G and Fibre services, we will deliver consumers and businesses across the country next-generation services and a superior level of support.
“Our new plans have been developed to offer our customers everything they have been asking for – superfast performance, choice and value – as well as a fresh approach to pricing and customer service that offers accessibility, flexibility and guidance every step of the way.”
EE chief of sales Marc Allera added: “What we wanted to do, and I think we have achieved this objective, is to bring something very simple to the UK. And you’ll see with all the plans coming with unlimited calls and text, customers will only have to make a choice regarding what amount of data they need. It’s a very, very simple set of tariffs.
“Customers basically get access to 4G superfast mobile internet, which is five times faster than 3G, for £36 a month, on the entry level price plan. This comes with 500MB of data, which for many people is more than enough.”
“If you compare like for like against Orange it is about £5 a month more to use 4G than 3G.”
“There is a big market for business, particularly small businesses which are using a lot of data on the move. And we have got a range of business price plans for them as well as normal tariffs, and we have our standard data sharer plans which are very popular with businesses.
“But there is a huge amount of consumers now that use a huge amount of data on their smartphones. They use their phone more for data than they do for talking and texting. So for them to get five times faster access is a really good thing.
“There is a large proportion of the market, in and around £35 a month, and £30 a month as well. So to switch up, to upgrade to 4G for only £5 extra a month is a really compelling proposition that should open up a large part of the market to us.”
4GEE will go live on 30 October in ten UK cities. EE said in a statement today that it has an “aggressive” roll-out plan in place with 4G launching in six further cities by the end of the year, with more cities and rural locations planned for 2013. It plans to cover 98 percent of the population by the end of 2014.
