EE, the UK's largest 4G network, has just announced its new 4GEE Home Router. The wireless device differs from traditional home broadband routers, because it uses EE's 4G wireless network for internet connectivity, rather than a fixed copper or fibre connection.
The company hopes its offering will be attractive for customers in rural areas where traditional broadband services suffer with slow connectivity. It would also be of interest to those who regularly move or travel frequently within the UK.
Unlike EE's fixed line offerings, the 4GEE Home Router service has one big caveat, and that's data usage limits. Because of the higher costs involved with delivering 4G data compared with traditional fixed line solutions, EE has priced its packages according to the amount of monthly data required, and it's not cheap:
| GB per month | 10GB | 50GB | 100GB | 200GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per month (£) | £25 | £50 | £75 | £100 |
*There's no charge for the router if subscribing to a monthly plan. Customers may opt to purchase the 4GEE Home Router for £129.99 outright, which includes an initial 10GB of pay-as-you-go data.
The 4GEE Home Router service is capable of delivering download speeds of up to 90Mbps using EE's accelerated 4G+, making it far quicker than most traditional broadband services, and giving some fibre offerings a run for their money, too. Another small perk is that because there's no fixed line, the service is ready to go straight out of the box, no engineer visit necessary.
After years of being forced to pay for landline telephony services to underpin broadband, a nationwide 4G offering feels like a step in the right direction. However, with data limits and a high monthly cost, it's difficult to imagine anyone but the most frivolous buyer, or the truly desperate, deciding that a 4GEE Home Router is the everyday connectivity solution for them.
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