EE Review: The UK’s fastest network, both for 4G and 5G

If you’re going to sell your network as the UK’s biggest and fastest, it helps if you’ve got some data to back it up. Luckily, EE has. Last year, RootMetrics’ UK RootScore report rated EE as the UK’s number one for the seventh year running, and the results of its H2 2020 survey have reaffirmed that position. What’s more, according to the same report, EE is currently the leader for 5G performance and availability.

Be warned: the best technology and performance doesn’t come cheap, but if you’re looking for maximum speed, EE is still in a class of its own.

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EE review: What do you get?

It’s not that EE overcharges for its handsets or its services, but it’s not the place to come if you’re looking for the cheapest deals. Buy an iPhone 12 from EE on a 24-month contract with 100GB of monthly data, and – at the time of writing – you’d be paying out £57 a month. Throw in the £50 upfront fee and your total cost over two years hits £1,418.

The same handset from Three on an unlimited data package would cost you £53 per month plus £49 upfront, for an overall cost of £1,321. It’s a similar situation with the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G, which comes in at £39 per month on Three for 30GB of data with a £29 upfront fee, against £42 per month for 10GB of data with a £70 upfront fee on EE.

EE’s best handset deals tend to sit with the higher data 5G packages, so it’s often worth checking whether spending a pound or two extra a month will net you a lot of extra data and make the package as a whole better value – particularly if you have a 5G phone.

As for its SIM-only deals, EE is expensive for low-data packages – sometimes twice the price of the competition – but gets more competitive as you move upwards and shift from its 12-month to 24-month contracts. £19 a month for 3GB is nobody’s idea of good value, but £20 a month for 120GB of 4G or 5G data is a lot more attractive. EE also throws in some interesting benefits, dubbed ‘Smart Benefits’, with its higher-end packages, including a choice of free Apple Music or BT Sport, or free data for video streaming or international roaming in a wider range of destinations.

EE review: Coverage and connection speeds

EE is way ahead of all the competition when it comes to speeds. RootMetrics’ last report (2H2020) measured EE’s UK-wide median download speed at 43Mbits/sec, with the nearest competitor, Vodafone, at 21.1Mbits/sec. EE won 26 nation-level RootScore awards from 28 total award chances, and also posted impressive 5G results – it was the only UK operator with median download speeds of above 100Mbits/sec in all 16 cities where RootMetrics tested. In Leicester, Coventry and Hull, EE achieved median download speeds of over 140Mbits/sec, and London and Glasgow weren’t far behind, with 136.8 and 139.3Mbits/sec respectively.

Coverage is also excellent, with high-speed 4G connectivity across the vast majority of the UK, bar a few spots in the more remote areas of Wales and Scotland, and growing 5G coverage around the nation’s larger cities, plus a few spots beyond. If you don’t just want good speeds, but consistently good performance, EE is very much the network to sign up with.

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EE review: Roaming

Like the other major networks, EE still allows inclusive roaming within the EU and EEA, while customers on EE’s Smart Benefits plans can also use the Roam Further swappable benefit to use their allowance in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the US. Other EE contracts offer an optional Travel Data Pass, giving you 500MB of daily data allowance in a wider range of countries for between £5 and £6.27 per day.

Outside of those benefits and add-ons, roaming can get quite expensive. You could be paying £1.88 a minute to make or take a call in Kenya or Thailand, with texts at 62p. Data works out at over a fiver for every megabyte used. If you’re a frequent traveller, other networks might have cheaper or more flexible deals.

EE review: Other services and spending caps

EE also has a handy Wi-Fi calling feature, where you can make calls and send texts over a Wi-Fi connection in places where you might not usually get a signal. This doesn’t actually save you money in the way that using a Voice over IP (VoIP) app like WhatsApp, Facetime or Facebook Messenger would, as both calls and texts come from your monthly allowance. However, it can be useful if you live in a remote area or work in a basement office. The only catch is that it’s only supported on specific iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices bought directly from EE.

EE’s Pay Monthly customers can also use its Underground Wi-Fi – complete with Wi-Fi calling – on the London Underground. That’s a definite bonus if you’re living and working in the capital.

EE supports data caps, and you can configure them online or by sending a text message. However, the caps don’t include add-on purchases or payments to certain premium numbers or subscriptions, so you’ll still want to keep an eye on how anyone else on a family contract uses (or abuses) their phone.

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EE review: Customer satisfaction

Ofcom’s latest customer service and satisfaction reports paint EE in a good light. With an overall satisfaction score of 92%, EE is second only to Giffgaff, while EE has one of the best results when it comes to complaints per 100,000 subscribers, with just six where some rivals are up in the twenties. The scores for satisfaction with value for money could be better. EE’s 80% isn’t bad, but no match for Giffgaff’s 95%, Three’s 88% or Tesco Mobile’s 90%. However, that likely reflects the fact that you do pay a premium to use EE.

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EE review: Verdict

Whether that premium is worth paying depends on how much you value EE’s reliability, coverage and performance, but you definitely get what you pay for. EE has long been the speediest 4G network but it’s surging ahead on 5G services as well. If you’re looking to stream HD or 4K video or play online games, then EE will allow you to do so in more places than any other network, and – in many situations – let you enjoy your smartphone and its streaming apps without so much waiting. Looking for the leading mobile network? Once again, EE is it.

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