EE Bring 4G Mobile Broadband to 73% of UK – 229 Large Towns and Cities

EE has deployed their “superfast” 4G (LTE) based Mobile Broadband network to another 14 large towns (total of 229 large towns / cities and more than 2,500 villages / small towns), which raises their overall network coverage to 73% of the United Kingdom (population). But they’ll need to go a lot faster to hit the 98% target.

The new service officially goes live today in Mansfield, Swinton, Jarrow, Kirkby, Wishaw, Ilkeston, Castleford, Walton-On-Thames, Totton, Carrickfergus, Newton Abbot, Wimborne Minster, Ramsbottom and Dumbarton. ISPreview.co.uk notes that such locations are only considered official 4GEE towns once “at least 80% of the area is covered“.

Olaf Swantee, EE CEO, said:

“We’re continuing to invest in bringing superfast 4G and the best quality of phone calls to more places in all four corners of the UK. We are switching on hundreds of 4G sites, and upgrading as many 2G and 3G sites, each month, and many of those are in rural areas where there is a real demand for voice and data services.”

The overall aim remains to make their 4G service available to 98% by the end of 2014, although they’ll need to pick-up the pace a bit because going from 72% in April to 73% in June (two months for +1%) seems like a dramatic slowdown of progress from last year, when they were admittedly focused on only the biggest cities and towns.