EE UK Ready to Switch-On 300Mbps 4G LTE Advanced Mobile Speeds

Mobile operator EE has told ISPreview.co.uk that their ultrafast 300Mbps (peak – shared capacity) capable 4G network upgrade, which will make use of the latest LTE-Advanced (Long Term Evolution) and Carrier Aggregation technology, is imminently due to exit its trial phase and go live.

Regular readers might recall that EE’s first trial of the new service, which delivers the faster ‘Category 6’ (Release 10) speeds by bringing together 20MHz of their existing 1800MHz radio spectrum band and 20MHz of the latest 2.6GHz band, began last year in East London’s Tech City (here). The operator also has the “busiest urban zones” of Birmingham and Manchester firmly in its sights for 2015.

By comparison EE’s existing network uses only a single 20MHz slice of the 1800MHz band and this tends to deliver average downloads of 20-30Mbps (the peak is probably around 150Mbps), albeit mostly in the operators so-called “double speed” cities (other areas tend to get slower performance).

Previous statements by EE had suggested that they “don’t expect to be making it commercially available in 2014“, although apparently this depends on how you define “commercial” because the operator has now informed us that their LTE-Advanced service with Carrier Aggregation will in fact be made officially available this year (no longer a trial).

Unfortunately EE wouldn’t be drawn on a precise date for the introduction, although interestingly they were polite enough to rule out November and December 2014. In other words, if the plan is to go live in 2014, then expect the service to surface this month and indeed the operator clarified, “we’ll have coverage across central London and a live service in weeks.”

Customers of EE’s 4G service, specifically those with supporting CAT6 LTE hardware (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S5, Note 4 etc.) and who live in the right area, can expect to benefit from the upgrade when it goes live to the public. Obviously coverage will be a problem for most. In the meantime EE are also preparing to trial another upgrade, which will take their peak / shared capacity speeds to 400Mbps (here).