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Everything Everywhere prices up UK 4G

Big-ticket speeding

Everything Everywhere has announced what it will charge for 4G mobile broadband today. Prices for the snappy connection starting at £36 a month.

Unfortunately, that'll only feed punters 500MB of data a month, which could be gobbled quickly on a connection with download speeds ten times that of HSPA 3G.

That allowance can be upped to 1GB for £41 a month, with 3GB available for £46 and 5GB for £51. Extremely data-peckish users can opt to pay a mammoth £56 for 8GB of downloads every 30 days. At least everyone gets unlimited calls and texts with that.

All EE contracts are run for a two-year duration. They may seem pricey, but there are various incentives to make the move. For starters, those signing up can choose one of three bundles: Music, Gaming or Live TV.

That's either a free subscription to music service Deezer for groove-inclined mobile users, two games a month for the roaming button basher, or access to EE's exclusive telly service for travelling gogglebox addicts. The latter provides streams of up to 19 channels including Eurosport and Cartoon Network. Adventure Time on your phone… mathematical.

As well as expanding Orange's 2-for-1 cinema deal to EE customers, the firm has launched a EE movie streaming service and offers a free film each week until February 2013. It promises that any data used when streaming the content won't be taken out of your monthly data allowance.

All customers can tether or use VoIP services as part of their plan, while BT Wi-Fi is included for free on-demand access to wireless hotspots.

There's an incentive for frequent travellers too. For an extra £5 a month, customers can take their unlimited voice and text packages abroad and continue to use them at no extra cost. Now that makes a change.

As promised, subscribers already on a T-Mobile or Orange contract with a 4G-capable handset such as the iPhone 5 are able to swap to an EE plan without restarting the contract they're on. Those that need a handset upgrade will have to fork out at least £99.

Punters may still baulk at the contract prices, but thanks to that controversial Ofcom ruling, EE has a six-month head start over its rivals and thus the power to charge whatever it chooses.

Whether the likes of Vodafone and O2 will dramatically cut prices when they launch 4G services next year remains to be seen, but for now, the heaviest internet surfers will have to make quite a splash for their space on the 4G wave.

EE 4G UK launches in ten cities on 30 October. Those in Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Sheffield will be first with access, while the populations of Belfast, Derby, Hull, Newcastle and Nottingham should be onboard by Christmas. ®

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