UK mobile operator EE has passed the 10 million 4G customer milestone, making it Europe’s biggest LTE network. The operator has marked the event by releasing its latest 4GEE Mobile Living Index, which has looked at mobile data use and customer trends since 2013. LTE data passed 3G traffic for the first time, as new smartphones come to market and the 4G network is extended into new areas. LTE use in rural Scotland has risen by 60 percent, Wales by 50 percent and Southwest England by 49 percent since the rural rollout began.
EE predicted that at least one Exabyte of data a year will be carried across the network by 2018. This is three times more than now and 16 times more than over the 3G network in 2012. The increase in data is fuelled by video and social media demand, which now account for 51 percent of the 4G network’s data traffic. New industries and sectors adopting mobile connectivity are also driving the data growth.
The research also found that the use of health-related apps had risen by 63 percent since August 2014. Over a quarter of people use some form of m-health monitoring and 50 percent said they would be happy to conduct video consultations with GPs rather than at visits.
