London,
06
April
2015
|
23:00
Europe/London

EE launches WiFi Calling to make calls and texts available in every home

  • EE WiFi Calling - London Underground 3
  • EE WiFi Calling - London Underground 2
  • EE WiFi Calling - London Underground
  • EE WiFi Calling - London Underground 3
  • EE WiFi Calling - London Underground 2
  • EE WiFi Calling - London Underground
  • EE launches UK’s first WiFi Calling service to make calls and texts available in every WiFi-connected home
  • Over four million people across the UK who lose connection in at least one room in their home can benefit
  • WiFi Calling launching on Lumia 640 and Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, and set to benefit more than five million EE customers by summer
  • The National Association of Estate Agents, the UK’s leading body for professional estate agencies, says WiFi Calling can stop house sellers suffering from losing out due to poor mobile coverage

Tuesday, 7 April 2015 – EE today announced the launch of WiFi Calling, making calls and texts available in every WiFi-connected home and small office in the UK.

The UK’s first launch of WiFi Calling will help over four million people who say they lose mobile connection in at least one room in their house. The recent survey of connectivity in the home also found that a quarter of people in the UK work from home at least one day per week and 20 percent of those lose connectivity during the day, so WiFi Calling will be a big benefit to the country’s increasingly mobile workforce.

As well as helping people across the UK in homes and small/home offices, WiFi Calling can also change the value of your home. Simon Gerrard, President, National Association of Estate Agents said: “Mobile coverage is becoming increasingly important to people when they’re buying a house – innovations like this can help sellers ensure they are maximising the value of their home and are not losing out due to poor mobile coverage.”

WiFi Calling from EE is not like ‘over the top’ services that enable calls using WiFi. WiFi Calling from EE uses the phone’s normal dialler and contacts book to make calls, and the normal text button to send text messages. There is no need for an app, and friends don’t need to be using the same closed user group services to talk to or message each other.

WiFi Calling from EE will be available from launch on the Lumia 640 and from Friday 10 April on the brand new Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. More new and existing devices will be added to the WiFi Calling range in the coming weeks, and by summer 2015 more than five million EE pay monthly customers will have access to WiFi Calling.

EE CEO Olaf Swantee said:

“Losing coverage at home is a major frustration, and WiFi Calling will make a real difference to millions of customers across the UK, from basement flats in London to the most rural homes in the country. Our customers want to be able to call and text no matter where they are, and they don’t want to have to think about which app they need to use or if their friends have a particular third party service.”

Research carried out by ICM on behalf of EE in March 2015 found almost one in ten people have one room or more in their home where they have no mobile connectivity, and this increases to 15 percent for those living in rural and semi-rural areas. 

WiFi Calling will be available to EE pay monthly consumer and small business customers with compatible devices. WiFi Calling will be available to corporate 4GEE customers with compatible devices this summer.

- ENDS -

For more information about EE please visit www.ee.co.uk/wificalling

 

* ICM poll of 2,000 adults, March 2015

About EE

EE is the largest and most advanced digital communications company in Britain, delivering mobile and fixed communications services to consumers, businesses, government and the wholesale market. EE has approximately 13,000 full time employees and 580 retail stores, and serves more than 30 million customers across its mobile, fixed and wholesale businesses.

EE runs the UK's biggest, fastest and most reliable mobile network, pioneering the UK's first superfast 4G mobile service in October 2012. EE's 4G coverage today reaches more than 85% of the UK population. EE’s 2G coverage reaches 99% of the population while 3G reaches 98%. EE's superfast fibre broadband service covers 54% of the UK population, and ADSL broadband service covers 98.7% of the population.

In the last few years, EE has received extensive independent recognition including being ranked the UK's best overall network by RootMetrics®, Best Network Operator and Most Innovative Service at the 2015 Mobile News Awards, Best Network at the 2014 Mobile Choice Consumer Awards and What Mobile Awards 2013, Fastest Network at the 2013 uSwitch Awards, Network Innovation at the 2013 Recombu awards and Best Network for Business at the 2013 Mobile Industry awards.

Follow us on…

Rankings based on RootMetrics® UK RootScore® Report for mobile performance as tested on best available plans and devices on 4 mobile networks across all available network types (Jul-Dec 2014). The RootMetrics award is not an endorsement of EE. Your results may vary. See rootmetrics.co.uk for more details.