EE boosts mobile broadband offering with professional 4G home antenna installation

Last year, EE launched its 4G home router with data plans of up to 200GB a month. It wasn’t a cheap option, but it did allow some customers to get speeds otherwise unavailable by any other solution.

Today, EE has revised its price plans with a £40 per month price drop on the top 200GB plan, and 30-day contract plans joining the current 18-month plans.

The biggest news, however, is a one-off £100 fee for a professionally installed external antenna that will almost certainly make a significant difference to the likely data speeds attainable from the service.

After all, a router placed indoors (likely downstairs near the television, or in the middle of the house for the best Wi-Fi connectivity) is probably not the ideal position for something that relies on a mobile signal over a cable plugged into a wall.

The service is aimed primarily at those living in rural areas (EE claims it will benefit up to 580,000 homes), but in reality it may be just as useful for those in towns and cities either still waiting for fibre activation, or living just too far away from a cabinet to receive a good level of service today and for the foreseeable future.

Fixed broadband services are also often quite heavily restricted when it comes to upload speeds, while 4G via this solution can offer speeds of up to 100Mbps (and up to 300Mbps for downloading).

The current data plans and upfront costs are detailed below. Existing EE pay-monthly and SIM only customers signing up can also benefit from additional 5GB of free data per month.

Users opting for a monthly rolling contract will have to pay a £99.99 upfront cost for the router, which supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi and LTE Cat 7 (300/100Mbps).