When EE launched there was a lot of stick in their direction as the company decided not to offer unlimited data on their new 4G network, especially when T-Mobile and Three offer it on certain plans.
However we are now 4 months on and CEO of EE, Olaf Swantee has stated at MWC this year that the average use per customer is only 1.4GB per month.
Considering there are plans offering 3GB, 8GB and now 20GB this should bring some relief to smartphone customers who have been undecided about joining the 4G network due to the concern of hitting data limits with all the extra bandwidth now available.
If you are quick and get your order in before tomorrow night, EE are offering discount on the top 20GB plan which gives you a 12 month sim only deal for £46 a month, rising to £61 a month after.
nice of EE to say we dont go over that but Still too expensive 🙁 .. if i wanted faster internet i will go home and use my wifi :P.. you can get the 3g full monty for 21£ a month so still good value
1.4GB he’s talkin outta his arse. its stupid to come to such a Conclusion if they offer less and charge ripoff rates ofcourse ppl are going to use less.i meen like £6 for like 500mb wtf
The reason for this is people are scared of going over their limits due to the onerous charges EE make for going over your alloted data imit!
1.4GB sounds about right. There will be a lot of users that are just using Facebook and Twitter which brings the average down. The lowest plan being 3GB helps the number too, I bet a lot of users are actively keeping their usage down.
Ultimately though this number is here simply because of these capped packages. If they did offer an unlimited package then suddenly they will get a tonne of users with no regards for download limits, then the average shoots up. It’s all relative.
I bet an unlimited contract would be bordering on £100 though look at the prices being charged currently! :-p
EE dont have my custom rite now simply because they charge far too much for what there offering … I don’t mind paying a reasonable amount but they want is way too much for there plans … I left o2 late last year for the same reason £10 for 1gb of data is a total rip off … 3 have the rite idea gain other networks costomers by giving the consumer what they want at a reasonable price !
EE LTE monthly and over-use data charges are simply too expensive. While 1.4GB may be the average I suspect the majority of people reading this website use more data per month. EE does have packages to meet these needs and could benefit by adding a few more (i.e. 50GB, 100GB, 500GB etc…) but the ultimate reasons this won’t be successful are: it’ll still be too expensive (versus current 3G/3G+ pricing); the ‘low-cost’ £41 leads to a 30% increase (£61) in monthly cost; 3G+ will probably be fast enough for most people without any real degradation; and until 4G is rolled out nationwide by all/majority of carriers there won’t be proper competition on pricing, service levels, etc…
If they are only using 1.4GB per month to do things like “Check Facebook and Twitter”, why on earth would you join this network paying £40+ per month? If your only using low amount and checking social networks, surely you would be better on a standard 3G tariff which is much cheaper and in some cases unlimited. Some people must have money to burn!
EE and Swantee are being very specious in their argument for holding down the data allowances on their LTE (a data-only) network. I constantly have to ask myself what EE think a LTE network is for if not for data. It doesn’t actually do anything else, all of the Unlimited Voice and Text is carried over EE’s 2G/3G network.
So the other night I settled down to watch TED Talks (worth visiting ted.com) which are always educating and entertaining. I was on the Three 3G network at the time. In a 90 minute session (each video is around 8 – 15 minutes) I had consumed 1.8GB. Had I been on EE I would have clearly used up my “average” of 1.4GB and then been heading towards going out of bundle.
The thing is, once people start using EE’s LTE network for what it is often advertised for, ie. watching movies uninterrupted by buffering blah blah blah, they will run out of even the 20GB/£61 maximum.
There is absolutely no practical or financial incentive to take on EE’s LTE proposition as it currently stands. They are trying to milk their position of first out of the gate for all it is worth. History will reveal that as a major gaffe – where they could have won a lot of new custom and good will had they not been greedy. Of course now, in the face of poor figures, Olaf changes his tune to say that their LTE tariffs are pitched for retention only. Meanwhile flocks of pigs fly overhead at EE headquarters.
Totally agree! 20GB seems a reasonable allowance until you realise that it’s possible to burn through that in a matter of hours when you’re using the fastest connection they offer.
And actually, I think that’s the point. Data isn’t like voice. Voice (or minutes) can be used up, but for most modern contracts it’d take a long time. Imagine speaking to somebody for 1000 minutes (~17 hours) in one session! 20GB, however, could be eaten up in under two hours on the fastest current connection speeds (by the same calculation, 2GB can be done in under 10 minutes). Plus, downloading is a fairly passive activity and can be done while your phone is in your pocket. Granted, video is the most likely culprit to eat this up.
This is why I think that the data allowances should reflect the nature of the media and the capacity to download it. I think this highlights quite how stingy the allowances are.
I think Three have convinced me that their data network and policy is by far the best, and most suited to modern usage.
I don’t know about anyone else, but my data usage varies wildly. When I’m at home and other specific places, I have WiFi access, and therefore I tend not to use much mobile data.
As part of my new phone contract, they gave me a couple of months of free unlimited data. They kept sending me text messages saying that I’ve only used “0.3GB”. Well, I had no need to use it. I was on WiFi 99% of the time over the last couple of months, and when I wasn’t the signal was too crap to download anything substantial.
This is what I mainly have a problem with. Here I am paying for quite a piffling amount of data per month, and when I actually need it, I run out straight away and end up paying more. This is why the ‘average’ they keep harping on about is such a stupid measure.