4G announcement today?

simax

diamonds wrote: »

Orange & T-Mobile sims/plans will NOT work with LTE phones/network & a EE plan will be needed for 4G access

Please pray tell how you know this for sure 100%? None of the internal pages or emails state this...... We won't know for sure until the brand launches.

Tony5101

I really wouldn't worry about 3G being defunct any time soon.
Remember it's only Everything Everywhere that have announced their 4G plans. The other UK networks are miles off a 4G network.
IMO 4G will currently have absolutely zero impact on 3G pricing for the foreseeable future.
Personally, I wouldn't have any issues with signing up for a 24 month contract. In fact, you might only start to see any impact of the 4G infrastructure at the end of this time anyway.

Bella_b

Just saw this on BBC national news and read about it on Tech radar website earlier and they both showed speed tests! 4g looked considerably faster, 3x at least I think.

dealer_wins

I know faster is better, but when I can watch movies/youtube without buffering issues, and use skype/voip fine, what actual difference is 4G going to make on a mobile phone experience?

jayme1

dealer_wins wrote: »

I know faster is better, but when I can watch movies/youtube without buffering issues, and use skype/voip fine, what actual difference is 4G going to make on a mobile phone experience?

It's all about bandwidth and how much the network can accommodate,
you're downloading a file on 3G it may take, say, 5 minutes, on LTE it could take 1 minute therefore you are on and off the network quicker making room for other people.

Secondary effects to that is that you have only used the battery intensive download for 1 minute instead of 5 therefore you battery should last longer too.

There are plenty of other reasons behind the scenes, better security (2G can be hacked) and IPv6 (which 3G can do but it is better on LTE), among others, but to the people using it all will be completely transparent, all they will see is 'you can do stuff faster'.

The ultimate goal will be to one day to use LTE exclusively and turn off 2G and 3G, but this will be many many years down the line, at that point LTE would be ubiquitous, any £10 handset will have it, roll-out of LTE is already destined to be as universal as 2G is now, but with none of the downsides.

NFH

simax wrote: »

Please pray tell how you know this for sure 100%? None of the internal pages or emails state this...... We won't know for sure until the brand launches.

Orange business customer services told me today that 4G will be available only on EE-branded plans. Existing customers still in contract on Orange and T-Mobile on branded plans will be allowed to migrate to an EE-branded plan, for which a new SIM card will be required. Presumably many of these will be nano-SIMs.

diamonds

^Same here, I'm almost out of contract & in a few months I can upgrade, Orange staff have said hold tight but I cannot transfer my plan nor extras and a new contract will be with a new sim & handset that is EE branded & locked so buying a EE handset to put my sim in will only give me 3G as 4G is sim & a/c operated on a EE LTE phone contract only.

Staff have been trained in the basics but prices are unknown until head office releases them. Stupid because prices at launch could have got a larger % of the market between now & xmas if customers knew what they, few friends on other networks retention deals are due upgrades by end Sept but losing bundles soon so are researching the market now to PAC out.

Frankly to get me on EE with my priceplan Orange will need to pull something amazing to get me to jump into another 2 years 4GEE from anything EE given the 6 years at Orange have been one palava after another & billing issues EVERY contract...

Shame as 21mbps on 3G would have done me fine with a LTE handset & would have future proofed me but well if they aint compatable....

eljmayes

slingo wrote: »

Does anyone know what the impact of 4g will have on existing technology, i.e. will 3g devices become obsolete like VHS recorders, or will we have a two tier infrastructure? Will 3g deals become cheaper? What impact has this had in other parts of the world where 4g already exists? I'm looking to get a new contract for my wife, but I don't want to sign up for another 3g handset for two years if its going to be useless within a few months...... :sad:

If you have a 4G phone and you are out of range it will drop down to 3G automatically. 4G is rumoured to be around a fiver a month on 4GEE.

NFH

eljmayes wrote: »

4G is rumoured to be around a fiver a month on 4GEE.

Is that £5 per month on top of whatever you normally pay for data? I can't believe it would be £5 for 500MB or 1GB as that's the same or less than the existing charges.

cgk1

Well the rumour is that the iphone 5 will be about £50 a month on the EE network and £45 on the orange/t-mobile networks so this is where the £5 idea is coming from - but for all we know in the first twelve months, EE might not have any plans below £45.... we already know it will not have any PAYG plans.