The UK’s leading cellco, EE, is no longer the only LTE provider, with rivals Vodafone and Telefonica O2 launching their services and 3UK preparing to do so later in the year. But the France Telecom/Deutsche Telekom joint venture has demonstrated the value of its headstart by crossing the one million-subscriber mark on its LTE network, four months ahead of target and ahead of any other European cellco.
The operator has sometimes been accused of failing to capitalize on the market lead it gained when regulator Ofcom allowed it to refarm its 1.8GHz GSM spectrum for LTE last year, while its competitors, which have their GSM networks in the 900MHz band, were forced to wait to buy new spectrum in the auction earlier this year. EE was criticized for the premium rates it initially charged for LTE, but it adjusted its pricing as competitive launches came closer and accelerated its roll-out. It has gone live in over 100 cities now and covers over 60% of the population with 4G.
Its CEO, Olaf Swantee, said the UK had seen one of the fastest adoption rates in the world for 4G, indicating the pent-up demand that had built up amid the country’s repeated delays in allocating LTE spectrum.
EE also announced that supermarket chain Asda, the UK arm of Walmart, would switch its MVNO deal from Vodafone. Asda Mobile has run on the Vodafone network since its launch in 2007 but is now switching to EE as part of a broader alliance, which also includes the free Wi-Fi access the supermarket offers in its 568 stores.