4G announced

[007stuart]

As per http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19543042.

Given the Virgin Mobile network is hosted by Everything Everywhere does this mean we will get 4g phones from Virgin in the near future?

Only if Virgin Media makes a deal with EE to buy capacity on its 4GEE network. I will be surprised if the current deal contains any clauses about automatic access to any future products developed by EE.

[12noon]

4G wouldn't be much good for me because the closest place i could use it would be Leeds and i only ever go once in a blue moon. Give it another six months to a year and probably then i would think about wanting a phone upgrade. It's something like two years before i can actually upgrade though.

IIRC the new 4G licences have penalty clauses dictating the %age of the country they must cover with their networks, to avoid the same problem that has dogged 3G. However, EE has gained permission to re-use spectrum it already owns for its 4G service, so these conditions may not apply. If that's the case, 4GEE may well be the first to launch but there's no reason to expect it to become widely available any more quickly than the competitors who won't get their services off the ground for some time yet.

[Matthew]

Will be interesting to see how many people in Hull ditch KC and get dongles and use them for a better service for internet!

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Chris

Only if Virgin Media makes a deal with EE to buy capacity on its 4GEE network. I will be surprised if the current deal contains any clauses about automatic access to any future products developed by EE.

Pretty certain it won't.

Even Orange and T-Mobile's own customers will not get access to EE's 4G network. It's entirely (commercially) separate and existing customers will need to move to EE and disconnect from Orange/T-Mobile to get "4G". It took Virgin Mobile a good few years to get access to T-Mobile's 3G network in the first instance.

(I say "4G" since even 4G LTE is not true 4G, it's 3.9G, though it's better than the 3.75G the Americans have been (mis)selling as 4G)

[Tricky Trevor]

In talks

http://blog.gadgethelpline.com/virgi...rvice-uk-year/

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Tricky Trevor

In talks

http://blog.gadgethelpline.com/virgi...rvice-uk-year/

They don't even offer a good selection of phones so 4G would be pointless.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Peter_

They don't even offer a good selection of phones so 4G would be pointless.

I'd say that being able to choose from (amongst others):

Galaxy S II
Galaxy S III
HTC One V
HTC One X
Nokia Lumia 800
Sony Xperia U

and coming up
Motorola Razr I
Galaxy Note II

as a good selection of phones to suit most people's needs

And anyway there aren't many 4G/LTE phones out there that'll work in the UK, so EE won't have a huge range themselves

The prices are horrible, nearly all of the £15 contracts have been or are available for £7.50 at Carphone Warehouse.

Scrap that, they've now bumped everything upto £20, even worse.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

The prices are horrible, nearly all of the £15 contracts have been or are available for £7.50 at Carphone Warehouse.

Scrap that, they've now bumped everything upto £20, even worse.

Are those the non-customer or customer tariffs

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

I'd say that being able to choose from (amongst others):

Galaxy S II
Galaxy S III
HTC One V
HTC One X
Nokia Lumia 800
Sony Xperia U

and coming up
Motorola Razr I
Galaxy Note II

as a good selection of phones to suit most people's needs

And anyway there aren't many 4G/LTE phones out there that'll work in the UK, so EE won't have a huge range themselves

Not forgetting the usual stock issues so little point in advertising when all that happens when you try to order one and they say sorry out of stock and unsure when if ever they will return, reason being a small fish in a large ocean where the sharks get first dibs on available phones.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Peter_

Not forgetting the usual stock issues so little point in advertising when all that happens when you try to order one and they say sorry out of stock and unsure when if ever they will return, reason being a small fish in a large ocean where the sharks get first dibs on available phones.

No stock issues on most of those - HTC One V is being discontinued in favour of the Razr I, but that's it

Samsung GSII;
VM: £33
VM Quad: £28
Carphone: £26 (100 more minutes, 250mb more data, unlimited texts)

BlackBerry 9320;
VM: £20
VM Quad: £15
Carphone: £12.50 (50 more minutes, 500mb more data, 4500 more texts)

Samsung Galaxy Y;
VM: £18
VM Quad: £13
Carphone: £7.50 (50 more minutes, 4500 more texts)

Nokia Lumia 800;
VM: £24
VM Quad: £19
Carphone: £12.50 (50 more minutes, 4500 more texts)

You get better value walking into a shop for the first time than you do by paying £X a month for years.

[BenMcr]

Samsung Galaxy SIII
VM £33
Carphone £28
VM Quad £28 (100 more mins, 400 more texts, 400MB more data + Unlimited calls/texts to other Virgin Mobiles)