EE Rise to 704K UK Home Broadband Users and Doubles 4G Customers

Mobile operator and ISP EE (Orange UK) has today reported that their fixed line Home Broadband subscriber base has grown by +10,000 customers in Q2-2013 to reach a total of 704,000 (up sharply from the +1k added in Q1). Meanwhile their 4G based mobile customers have doubled from 318,000 in Q1 to 687,000 now.

However a recent study by Ofcom revealed that EE still receives the highest number of consumer complaints among all of the largest home broadband ISPs (here) and they’ll need to get a handle on that if they’re to avoid another return to high levels of churn.

Elsewhere the operator’s new 4G (LTE at 1800MHz) based mobile broadband network has just gone live in another 10 UK towns including: Altrincham, Bedford, Camberley, Crawley, Farnborough, Farnham , Maidstone, Rochdale, Tonbridge and Welwyn Garden City. Its double speed 4G upgrade (i.e. averages of 24-30Mbps) has also just gone live in Belfast, Newcastle and Southampton. EE’s 4G service now covers almost 60% of the UK population.

Olaf Swantee, EEs CEO, said:

“It has been a busy summer with the launch of next generation services including Cash on Tap and new Shared 4GEE plans, and we’re continuing to keep up the pace of our 4G rollout. Today we’re launching in a further 10 UK towns bringing superfast 4G services to more and more businesses and consumers. The arrival of double speed 4G in a further three cities means we remain one step ahead, and on track to provide our customers with a world leading mobile experience.”

EE also said that its fixed broadband business saw strong 9% year-on-year revenue growth in Q2 and they claim to be “making good progress” with selling fixed line products on to their mobile customers. As a side note we were very impressed with the high-spec of their new BrightBox 2 wireless broadband router kit (here).

The signs are encouraging but only time will tell whether EE’s fixed broadband products can hold their own over a longer period of time. History has shown that the operator’s focus on mobile tends to result in their fixed line solutions being neglected but we’re starting to see that change.