Following the O2 announcement it now looks like Vodafone are ready to show their hand, with a 4G launch date of August 29th – the very same date that O2 will launch their 4G offering. So, in a little over three weeks you’ll be able to get 4G on Vodafone… in London.
12 other cities will quickly follow, with Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield popping onto the list by the end of the year.
Voda have prices starting ay £26 per month on 12 month SIM-only deals, which again matches that of O2 but, as before, we’re still awaiting the full details on what you get for that cost plus all the other pricing. Voda are, however, to add an unlimited data allowance during the first three months of contracts and we can gleam some information on their packages below.
Vodafone grabbed the biggest chunk of radio frequency spectrum in the 4G auction and, with a low frequency signal, it’ll mean better indoor coverage.
Vodafone are making new “Red 4G” plans available from August 12th. These offer Spotify and Sky Sports Mobile TV as options, delivering either ad-free music or the latest sport action depending on what you choose.
Guy Laurence, CEO, Vodafone UK tells us..
With 4G, speed is just the start: it’s what you do with it that really matters. We are taking 4G into a new league by offering sport; and changing the tune with all the music you could want. 4G is coming of age, and there’s plenty to look forward to.
Existing Vodafone Red customers with a 4G-ready device can upgrade to 4G for £5 extra (yes, that 4G premium is here) per month. There’s three plan types – Vodafone Red 4G, Red 4G L and Red 4G XL. Currently the Vodafone 4G site hasn’t been updated with full details of these plans, but they do say..
As a Vodafone Red 4G-ready customer you’ll get double the data allowance of our regular 3G Red plans, and the choice of either Spotify Premium or Sky Sports Mobile TV access for up to two years. Oh, and that’s on top of unlimited calls and texts.
If this is accurate you can expect…
Vodafone Red 4G – 2GB internet, unlimited calls and texts
Vodafone Red 4G L – 4GB internet, unlimited calls and texts
Vodafone Red 4G XL – 8GB internet, unlimited calls and texts
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Full details are available on this Vodafone blog post.
Well, Vodafone stand to have by far the best 4G network of all, and I’m hoping this means using their spectrum allocation to its full potential. I’ve been quite looking forward to what Vodafone eventually offer, and actually, it all looks pretty good to me.
Thankfully, it appears that they are offering decent data allowances for the £5 premium, not that they’re really quite enough IMHO.
Vodafone’s huge chunk of spectrum should mean that they have the diversity of signal to offer both coverage and bandwidth, so Voda should be the network to choose.
Bizarrely, Vodafone had the best 3G network for a good while (IMHO, and I had them all at one point), but its performance seems to have eroded over the last few years to the point that it’s probably one of the worst.
So just as long as Voda do what we all hope they will, and provide very good coverage, very good bandwidth and decent, accessible plans, I’m not sure I’ll begrudge the extra fiver too much. But therein lies the problem.
As soon as it launches, you’ll be paying £5 extra for 4G, when you’ll only be able to receive 4G signal in a tiny handful of areas. By the time their network is up to strength, they will have the infrastructure to be competitive (and maybe charge a premium), but by then I dare say the other networks will have brought their prices down a bit in comparison.
So, I’m going to stick with my current phone which does not support Voda’s LTE frequency, and maybe look to see what the best deal is some time in late 2014 when all the networks have 4G presence. Until then, I doubt I’m missing anything whatsoever.
Encouraging – those are reasonable data allowances for the prices; they put EE’s plans to shame.
Still happy on 3 though at the moment – I get such good speeds & coverage I don’t think I’ll gain much from 4G, although obviously I’ll want it when its available 😉