UK operator EE announced an upgrade to its 4G network able to deliver speeds in excess of 400 Mbps. Cardiff and London are the first to benefit from the upgrade, and Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh city centres will have sites upgraded during 2017.
EE said customers connected to these sites should be able to consistently experience speeds above 50Mbps. The Sony Xperia XZ Premium, launched last week, is the first Cat 16 device to support the faster speeds.
EE is using a combination of 30MHz of 1,800MHz spectrum and 35MHz of 2.6GHz spectrum to deliver the LTE upgrade. The 1,800MHz carriers use 4x4 MIMO, which sends and receives four signals instead of just two, making the spectrum up to twice as efficient. The sites also broadcast 4G using 256QAM, or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, which increases the efficiency of the spectrum.
Updates
8 JUN 2017
- EE corrects spectrum details.
