Hasta La Gadget!

UK 4G carrier EE has revealed its latest devices, including an 802.11ac router for EE’s fiber, as well as detailing its shared 4G plans and double-speed roll-out. EE DoubleSpeed will go live on July 4th, the carrier has confirmed today, and offer up to 150Mbps theoretically, though in practice more like 24-40 Mbps; it’ll be available to new and existing subscribers (at no extra cost) in twelve cities, rather than the originally announced ten. There’s also a new mobile payments service in association with MasterCard.

Meanwhile, there’s also a summer promotion on the way: new sign-ups before September 30th will get more data for their money. EE also has a new data-only option for pay-as-you-go connections, initially offering three months of service for the price of a single month.

As for the mobile payments service, dubbed Cash On Tap, that offers NFC payments of up to £20 ($30) at over 230,000 UK outlets. First time users will get £10 automatically added on, and a local app will allow transaction tracking and balance enquiries.

For the home, meanwhile, there’s the EE Bright Box 2, an 802.11ac WiFi router for EE fiber subscribers. It’ll be offered free to plug-and-play to EE broadband subscribers for easy installation, and has four ethernet ports and supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz use.
Update: We originally reported the Bright Box 2 bridged an LTE connection; in actual fact it will eventually be able to do that with a USB 4G modem, though the first generation of boxes will only support 3G modems thanks to power-draw shortcomings on the port itself. EE tells us the second-gen version will provide enough power for 4G modems, though first-gen box owners won’t be able to upgrade as it’s a hardware shortcoming.

EE’s shared plans, meanwhile, will support up to five devices, with unlimited calls/texts for phones and up to 20GB of data. Adding a phone costs an extra £12 per month on a 12-month contract; adding a tablet or mobile broadband device will cost £5 more. A data limit alert is sent out at 80-percent and 100-percent of the allowance being used up, after which point internet access is denied until a top-up data bundle is purchased. More details – and pricing – in the gallery below.

It’s been an impressive few months for EE’s 4G network, which only launched in the UK eight months ago. The carrier now covers 55-percent of the UK by population, and expects that to rise to 98-percent by the end of 2014.

Meanwhile, independent metrics suggest EE’s LTE speed in the UK actually out-performs 4G in New York City, though given US service started earlier – and presumably has more subscribers – that’s maybe not so great a surprise. EE is also claiming that its network is on a par with the fastest 4G services in Korea, though that obviously doesn’t include the new LTE-Advanced.

Of course, EE can’t expect to have the 4G market in the UK all to itself, and its rivals are mustering their own LTE with launches later this year. Vodafone UK is already offering “4G ready” devices – most recently the R212 mobile hotspot – complete with latent LTE support, ready for when the carrier’s service goes live in a matter of months.

EE DoubleSpeed LTE goes live July 4; 802.11ac router, Mobile Payments, more is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

EE’s 4G may grab the headlines, but the company’s also offering land line phone and internet services with a (Kevin) Bacony-twist. Now, the network is coaxing existing customers away from rival ISPs like Virgin and BT with six new unlimited broadband and call packages. The £5-per-month basic tier will give you unlimited ADSL and weekend calls, while bluer bloods can fork out £29 a month to get unlimited fiber (up to speeds of 76 Mbps), unlimited calls to landlines and 1,000 free mobile minutes each week. We’ve added a chart for comparison after the break, assuming you don’t reach for your wallet every time you see a product pitched by the guy from Footloose.

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile

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4G carrier EE has announced the UK’s first shared plans, following US carriers in offering agreements which can be spread across multiple phones, tablets, and even different users. The Shared 4GEE Plans, which will be detailed “in the coming weeks” according to the carrier, come alongside a new set of pay-as-you-go mobile broadband plans for

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Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 Mini, announced earlier today, will be offered in LTE form in the UK, it’s been confirmed. The new, smaller iteration of the flagship Galaxy S 4 would be offered in three forms depending on market, Samsung had said today, with 3G, dual-SIM 3G, and 4G variants; now, the UK’s only current 4G carrier, EE, has weighed in with confirmation that it will be offering the smartphone.

“We can confirm we plan to stock the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini from launch” an EE spokesperson told us today. “It will be available on our superfast 4GEE service.” Meanwhile, the phone will also be available on 3G-only networks Orange and T-Mobile, which are part of the combined EE network.

Although it shares the name of the Galaxy S 4, the Mini version does make some significant departures from that handset’s flagship specifications. For instance, the 4.3-inch display runs at just qHD resolution – 960 x 540 – rather than the 1920 x 1080 of the full-sized phone. Inside, too, there’s a compromise to be made, with the Galaxy S4 Mini running a 1.7GHz dualcore chip rather than the quadcore of its bigger brother.

The camera also sees a compromise, mustering 8-megapixels rather than 13-megapixels. A single storage option has been confirmed at this stage – just 8GB, of which around 5GB is available to the user – though there’s still a microSD slot to add to that. It’s worth remembering that apps can’t be installed to microSD, however.

What none of the networks are saying is how much the Galaxy S4 Mini will cost, nor indeed when exactly it will hit their shelves. Those details may have to wait until Samsung’s “Premiere 2013″ event in late June, when the Mini will be one of a number of new devices – running both Android and Windows – we’re expecting to see.

Galaxy S4 Mini will support UK LTE confirms EE is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

More signs today the HTC First might also be the last smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed: UK carrier EE confirmed today that the first Facebook Home phone won’t be launching in the UK soon as planned, as Facebook has decided to concentrate its efforts on making improvements to the Home software before looking to add international markets. EE says it will soon be contacting customers who already used its pre-order system to express interest in the First to let them know about the delay, which is indefinite in length.

Here’s the full statement direct from EE:

Following customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customisation features to Facebook Home over the coming months. While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the UK, and so we will shortly be contacting those who registered their interest with us to let them know of this decision.

Rest assured, we remain committed to bringing our customers the latest mobile experiences, and we will continue to build on our strong relationship with Facebook so as to offer customers new opportunities in the future.

We’ve also received a near-identical statement from Orange in France, where customers were also able to register their interest, so this isn’t limited to just the UK.

This is not great news for either Facebook or HTC. We’ve seen reports that Facebook Home has been performing poorly as a download, and that the First isn’t selling well in the U.S. Home currently has a 2.5 cumulative average rating in the Google Play store, and AT&T is reportedly in the process of discontinuing the HTC First, though we’ve not heard definitely either way if that’s the final word as of yet.

A so-called “Facebook Phone” under-performing is nothing new; the HTC Status did almost just as poorly, lasting only 36 days before AT&T started considering a swing of the axe.

As of press time, there’s still a button on the Facebook Home splash page that directs you to a page where you can express interest in a pre-order, but presumably that will come down as the carriers move to reflect this change in their own pages and alert customers of the change in the First’s status.

Update: Facebook has povided the following official statement regarding its decision, which mirrors those issued by EE and Orange France:

We’ve listened to feedback from users on their experience using Home. While many people love it, we’ve heard a lot of great feedback about how to make Home substantially better. As a result we’re focusing the next few months on adding customization features that address the feedback we received. While we focus on making Home better, we are going to limit supporting new devices and think it makes a lot of sense for EE and Orange to hold off deploying the HTC First in Europe.