EE - 4G

[Vampire]

Edit: Above post is similar to mine - jinx!

The annoyance is that they offer a sparkly new service and tell you all the things you could do, if they didn't have a silly small data cap or artificial bandwidth throttling.

The reality is you realise you can't realistically watch a TV show or film on iPlayer/Netflix on the train to work, or on your lunchbreak, or stream TuneIn radio / Spotify all day at your desk, or download podcasts, or video-call people etc etc without capping out. Also don't forget you're remote working, and want to VPN in to the office from a customer site, or are working away - sitting in a Travelodge at night trying to check your emails and send in some reports on your laptop. These are hardly out of the ordinary activities for a working professional.

Coupled with the fact that it isn't everywhere yet. I get LTE at my office but not at home, but I'd still have gone for it if the tariffs had been remotely realistic. As they aren't, screw it I'll stay with 3G for now thanks.

 

[dasyad]

I'm curious where most of you think the average user will suddenly jump from 1Gb to 20Gb or some usage >8Gb as soon as they get 4G?

The average user is likely an employed person who commutes to work and uses his phone for email, Facebook, web browsing. In the typical day are all these people suddenly going to stop working and stream Netflix 24/7, are they going to disable wifi at home as they'd don't need it anymore?

Perhaps your argument is that the average person doesn't need 4G then, but why shouldn't they have the benefit of doing these things faster? What most of you on this forum want to do is push the network to its limit but will you really do all that streaming? Not to be rude but does the average user sit around for hours streaming content to their phone? And if you do you aren't an average user you're a power user and should pay a premium for doing so - get the 8Gb tariff and pay for addons if you go over that.

Commuting is the perfect example. If Mr Average is checking his friends holiday photos on Facebook he will find that he can view more in his 30minute commute and thus use more of his allowance. If he happens to check the BBC in the morning to catch up on the latest news he might start watching the video clips because he finds he can stream them more reliably.

Basically as soon as they realise they can do a little bit more, they will do a little bit more. All of that will soon add up and push them ever closer to their data cap.

Even these price points would have been better:

1GB £36
2GB £41
4GB £46
6GB £51
10GB £56

I think starting with a 500MB data allowance is very short sighted or perhaps very clever. If people sign up to that tariff thinking 500MB does them now so will be fine on 4G; they may eventually find out that it isn't because they are doing more. Therefore they will have to start paying for extra data or swap to a higher tarif if they allow that.

Also I was just thinking why don't they do separate 3G allowances for when you travel to a non-LTE area? At £36 you could get a T Mobile full monty tarif with unlimited 3G data, whereas if you're on EE you will still only have 500MB even if you're not getting the premium service you are paying for.

 

[shuzzbutt]

Ok, so put it like this - 3G is more than enough for browsing websites/watching youtube - if you are doing that you don't need 4G, its pointless.

I

This is where I disagree. I don't think the experience is consistent enough. Sometimes my webpages load quickly and at other times they are very slow. I live 11 miles from the centre of London so coverage is not an issue I have a strong 3g signal pretty much constantly yet the speed is very inconsistent IMO.

I am hoping wih 4g I will get a more consistent browsing experience. I am getting 4g precisely to have as slick a web browsing experience as possible.

 

[dasyad]

This is where I disagree. I don't think the experience is consistent enough. Sometimes my webpages load quickly and at other times they are very slow. I live 11 miles from the centre of London so coverage is not an issue I have a strong 3g signal pretty much constantly yet the speed is very inconsistent IMO.

I am hoping wih 4g I will get a more consistent browsing experience. I am getting 4g precisely to have as slick a web browsing experience as possible.

Which network are you on?

I'd wait a few weeks to see how the "real world" 4G experience is before rushing into buying it.

 

[m4rk84]

On three my 3G is incredibly consistent and very good indeed, I would suggest anyone with 3G issues should probably looking to change to another 3g provider rather then thinking 4G is going to solve all connectivity problems.

 

[Glaucus]

I'm curious where most of you think the average user will suddenly jump from 1Gb to 20Gb or some usage >8Gb as soon as they get 4G?

The average user is likely an employed person who commutes to work and uses his phone for email, Facebook, web browsing. In the typical day are all these people suddenly going to stop working and stream Netflix 24/7, are they going to disable wifi at home as they'd don't need it anymore?

Perhaps your argument is that the average person doesn't need 4G then, but why shouldn't they have the benefit of doing these things faster? What most of you on this forum want to do is push the network to its limit but will you really do all that streaming? Not to be rude but does the average user sit around for hours streaming content to their phone? And if you do you aren't an average user you're a power user and should pay a premium for doing so - get the 8Gb tariff and pay for addons if you go over that.

The average user on one of the EU carriers uses 15GB almost double the top tarrif on EE.
4G isn't designed for average users as seen by the way it's advertised, streaming films.
Again netflix for example is absolute min 300mb and hour all the way up to HD at 1.3GB an hour. So how do you stream films on any of those tariffs?

 

[shuzzbutt]

Which network are you on?

I'd wait a few weeks to see how the "real world" 4G experience is before rushing into buying it.

on t mobile at the moment. Don't get me wrong, the service and signal is fine, however, I'm hoping that it will be like when i jumped from my 2mb broadband connection to 60mb broadband. I'm not using any more data than I was but I definitely feel my internet experience is generally more consistent and slicker

 

[dasyad]

on t mobile at the moment. Don't get me wrong, the service and signal is fine, however, I'm hoping that it will be like when i jumped from my 2mb broadband connection to 60mb broadband. I'm not using any more data than I was but I definitely feel my internet experience is generally more consistent and slicker

Did you find your usage increased when moving from 2MB to 60MB? All I'm saying is that you need to be a little cautious as you may find that your usage will increase as you'll be able to get more things done in a shorter time period. If you do sign up with EE I'll be interested to hear what tariff and what your usage ends up being like

Thought about trying 3? Get a pay go SIM card from them and try it out for a week or two.

 

[kona786]

When are 4G contracts going live? Tuesday 30th?

 

[dasyad]

When are 4G contracts going live? Tuesday 30th?

I think so yeah. Hope they have plenty of demos in store of general browsing etc so it can be compared to 3G. Although what is unfair is that the 4G network will be a lot less congested than 3G...

 

[shuzzbutt]

Did you find your usage increased when moving from 2MB to 60MB? All I'm saying is that you need to be a little cautious as you may find that your usage will increase as you'll be able to get more things done in a shorter time period. If you do sign up with EE I'll be interested to hear what tariff and what your usage ends up being like

Thought about trying 3? Get a pay go SIM card from them and try it out for a week or two.

I'm sure I do use more than I did but my home usage is vastly different- I often watch hours of twitch tv and just leave it running watching streams of games I don't even play! However on my mobile I would be a lot more careful not to mention I mostly use my phone during the work day and hardly at home so my usage is going to be a lot less

I was too impatient and upgraded to a note 2 lte last week with no up front cost and my old £35pm tarrif with 900 min and unlimited texts. According to my phone between the 21-28th of october I've used 145mb of data so I'm hoping the caps wont bother me.

I will probably opt for the sim only £36pm deal which I think gives me 5gb data which should be more than enough.

 

[PeterNem]

Which network are you on?

I'd wait a few weeks to see how the "real world" 4G experience is before rushing into buying it.

I've experienced this with both O2 and Vodafone in London.

I sit frustrated daily with a supposedly full 3g connection and cannot get any data in or out of my device - particularly frustrating with an iPhone trying to use iMessage and what should send in a second results in a minute or so of trying before eventually failing back to SMS. Canary Wharf is particularly bad for congestion. Anything to spread users across more diverse networks/frequencies/capacity is a good thing.

 

[dasyad]

I'm sure I do use more than I did but my home usage is vastly different- I often watch hours of twitch tv and just leave it running watching streams of games I don't even play! However on my mobile I would be a lot more careful not to mention I mostly use my phone during the work day and hardly at home so my usage is going to be a lot less

I was too impatient and upgraded to a note 2 lte last week with no up front cost and my old £35pm tarrif with 900 min and unlimited texts. According to my phone between the 21-28th of october I've used 145mb of data so I'm hoping the caps wont bother me.

I will probably opt for the sim only £36pm deal which I think gives me 5gb data which should be more than enough.

5GB should be more than enough unless you're going to stream

If you're on a contract won't you need to swap over to their contract tariffs as opposed to the SIM only?

 

[shuzzbutt]

5GB should be more than enough unless you're going to stream

If you're on a contract won't you need to swap over to their contract tariffs as opposed to the SIM only?

yeah I'm not going to be streaming anything, just surfing the web, emails etc- but at 4g speeds!

i'm a bit confused about that- the website could be a little clearer. I was under the impression I could switch to a 4g tarrif as long as I was paying at least what I'm paying now.

 

[dasyad]

yeah I'm not going to be streaming anything, just surfing the web, emails etc- but at 4g speeds!

i'm a bit confused about that- the website could be a little clearer. I was under the impression I could switch to a 4g tarrif as long as I was paying at least what I'm paying now.

I thought they would put you on the 24 month phone tariffs they have, but you're right it isn't clear

If they did put you on the SIM only price then surely everyone will buy the phone on T Mobile/Orange then swap to EE rather than buy direct with EE

You'd get 500MB on £36 if they put you on the phone tariff which I imagine they would otherwise they'd lose money? 30th will be interesting when people finally get all their questions answered.

 

[shuzzbutt]

id hope considering ive got the phone already it would be pretty pointless in trying to charge me for the full whack unless they were going to offer another subsidised 4g handset lol

 

[dasyad]

id hope considering ive got the phone already it would be pretty pointless in trying to charge me for the full whack unless they were going to offer another subsidised 4g handset lol

I could be wrong but if for example you signed up for 24 month on T Mobile and got the Note 2 then they would transfer you onto the equivalent 24 month contract on EE which would be the £36 with 500MB data allowance.

Otherwise if they moved you on to SIM only you could leave your contract earlier than the would have intended.

Probably best ringing them ASAP and finding out.

 

[miniyazz]

I'm curious where most of you think the average user will suddenly jump from 1Gb to 20Gb or some usage >8Gb as soon as they get 4G?

The average user is likely an employed person who commutes to work and uses his phone for email, Facebook, web browsing. In the typical day are all these people suddenly going to stop working and stream Netflix 24/7, are they going to disable wifi at home as they'd don't need it anymore?

I already don't use the Wifi at home (actively tether my laptop to 3G) due to the Wifi being so rubbish (I'm stuck with ~1Mb/s (128KB/s)). I can only imagine others with slightly faster Wifi (e.g. 4Mb/s-16Mb/s) will find it faster to no longer use Wifi once they are using 4G.

 

[shuzzbutt]

I could be wrong but if for example you signed up for 24 month on T Mobile and got the Note 2 then they would transfer you onto the equivalent 24 month contract on EE which would be the £36 with 500MB data allowance.

Otherwise if they moved you on to SIM only you could leave your contract earlier than the would have intended.

Probably best ringing them ASAP and finding out.

well if thats the case then I would probaly stick to 3g! I don't want to spend any time calling t-mobile on my Sunday so will just leave it till tuesday to go instore to see whats what

 

[dasyad]

well if thats the case then I would probaly stick to 3g! I don't want to spend any time calling t-mobile on my Sunday so will just leave it till tuesday to go instore to see whats what

If you have your phone now I'd be spending all day on the sofa

Let us know what they say on Tuesday