After almost a year of dominating the 4G market as the only provider of the high speed connection, EE are now facing strong competition from Vodafone and O2 as they begin to rollout their services.
O2 have chosen Leeds, Bradford and London as the first cities to have the mobile 4G services which were launched yesterday. Vodafone’s services will only be available in parts of London for the time being.
Customers who choose to use the 4G services will be able to take advantage of broadband connection speeds of up to 10 times faster than 3G.
Despite finally offering competition to EE, Vodafone and O2 have been accused of taking a “very conservative approach” to 4G, at the expense of consumers.
Steven Hartley, a principal analyst at telecoms consultancy Ovum said, “The UK’s mobile networks are hedging their bets with 4G. They are trying the same strategy they used when they rolled out 3G, which is to offer 4G as a premium service to consumers, in an effort to move them onto expensive phone tariffs.”
Three also decided to throw their hat into the ring yesterday by announcing plans to launch their own 3G services in December.