EE claims 429Mbps 4G+ speeds in Wales – yup, that isn’t a typo

EE has opened the doors of the super-fast internet age in Wales, switching on its 4G+ network in the Welsh capital.

The new network was given the green light in both Cardiff and the Tech City area of London, as part of a demonstration, where EE claims to have achieved speeds of 429Mbps in Cardiff city centre using Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium. Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh city centres will have sites upgraded during 2017, and the capability will be built across central London, with peak speeds above 400Mbps, should you have the right device of course.

Peak speeds are all well and good to talk about, but we have a suspicion very few people will actually experience the holy grail. EE has promised customers connected to these sites should be able to consistently experience speeds above 50Mbps. It’s a decent promise and time will tell whether this is achievable.

“Sony has raised the bar in smartphone speeds, and we’re investing and innovating to match that and give our customers the fastest network speeds in the UK,” said Marc Allera, EE CEO.

“What we’ve demonstrated live in Cardiff is more than ten times the average mobile download speed. We’re rolling out this new capability in Cardiff and London’s Tech City, and we’ll keep expanding to the busiest areas of the UK so that our customers always have a great connection to do the things they love.”

With the mouth-watering speeds potentially available, numerous miners and farmers were clueless to what to do, but there are a few suggestions:

EE has also said the sites that are capable of delivering these maximum speeds are equipped with 30MHz of 1800MHz spectrum, and 35MHz of 2.6GHz spectrum. The 1800GHz carriers are delivered using 4×4 MIMO, which, in theory, sends and receives two signals instead of just one, making the spectrum up to twice as efficient. The sites also broadcast 4G using 256QAM, or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, which should increase the efficiency of the spectrum.