EE unveils world’s first petabyte mobile data bundle for business

EE introduces a range of huge data bundles for business, including the world’s first petabyte data bundle
EE’s Super Bundles for business have no expiry date, no contract period, no sharer fees – perfect for organisations wanting to flexibly expand their mobile data fleets
Data-intensive industries such as broadcast could benefit from mobile upload speeds in excess of 30 Mbps and save millions by using 4G instead of satellite and cable uplinks
EE predicts businesses will consume 860% more mobile data by 2016, generating demand for larger, more flexible data bundles that can meet future requirements

EE, the UK’s most advanced digital communications company, today unveils the world’s first petabyte (PB) mobile data bundle for business. The one-million-gigabyte option, the largest in a range of huge shared data bundles that starts at 50 terabytes (TB), could save broadcasters and other data-intensive industries millions of pounds.

EE’s new Super Bundles for business have been developed in response to corporate and public sector organisations that want to flexibly expand their mobile data fleets, and for data-intensive industries such as broadcast, communications media and CCTV that are looking for a cost effective alternative to satellite and cable uplinks.

Super Bundles are available in 50TB, 100TB, 200TB, 500TB and 1PB units to suit a range of business requirements. Each data bundle has no expiry date and is not subject to sharer fees. Businesses can add new SIMs at any time and individual users can top up data whenever needed. There’s no contract period with Super Bundles, so data can be scaled up or down to account for fluctuating usage. Super Bundles can be paid up front or payment can be phased over time[1].

EE predicts that businesses will consume 860 per cent more data on mobile devices by 2016. A 3G mobile data fleet of 2,500 users typically uses up to 200TB over a 36-month contract period. Over 4G, data usage is likely to increase to around 600TB. EE’s customers report they find it difficult to anticipate how their mobile data usage will grow in the medium-term and flexibility in data sharing is a growing concern. Super Bundles are designed to help businesses address this need and to get full value out of the data allowances they purchase.

Kester Mann, senior analyst at CCS Insight, said: “EE’s ground-breaking tariffs position it to capitalise on the huge increase in demand for data services expected from 4G enterprise consumers in the UK. These vast data allowances will provide businesses with an important competitive edge through increased productivity and cost savings. Further, their greater flexibility will suit many companies that regularly see fluctuations in data usage among the workforce.”

Broadcast companies ordinarily use satellite links to upload video from the field, at considerable cost and with limited service availability. Satellite uplink costs range from £20 per gigabyte for data transfer. EE’s new Super Bundles, costing £8 per gigabyte for a petabyte of data, could save broadcasters as much as £12 million when using that amount of data. As well as cost savings, broadcasters will no longer have to book data uplinks in advance. They simply use a mobile Wi-Fi device for an instant superfast data connection over 4G.

EE’s 4G network is among the world’s fastest. Its double speed service is now available in 20 cities across Britain, offering average upload speeds of 24-30 Mbps. EE is investing £1.5 billion over three years to ensure its network can support more customers with consistently higher data throughput than any other mobile network in the UK. Super Bundles give businesses more freedom to get the best from EE’s 4G network speeds and unrivalled capacity.

From 5 November, EE is trialling a 300Mbps network enabled by carrier aggregation, a fundamental feature of LTE-Advanced that combines spectrum from different bands to further boost performance, speed and capacity. Through this innovative use of spectrum assets, EE will be able to deliver more 4G bandwidth than any other operator in the UK, now and in the future.

Max Taylor, Director of Corporate Business at EE, said: “British businesses are transforming the way they work with new 4G mobile technology, cloud computing and collaboration tools. In light of these trends and with LTE-Advanced at up to 300Mbps on the horizon, we forecast corporate data consumption will grow by 860 per cent over the next three years. Armed with more spectrum holding, and subsequently more network capacity than any other UK operator, we are introducing our Super Bundles for businesses that want to transform mobile working for their employees and need a simple, scalable solution.”

The news comes as EE celebrates the one-year anniversary of its 4G network. In that time, EE has attracted more than 3,200 corporate customers that include companies such as Canon, Expedia and Kimberly-Clark. It has also signed MVNO deals with BT, Virgin Mobile and ASDA.

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

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Notes to Editors

A petabyte of data, or one million gigabytes, is equivalent to:

500 billion pages of standard printed text
1 billion Microsoft Powerpoint documents (40 slides each)
13 years of HD video streaming
250,000 downloads of Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise
10.2 million downloads of the Financial Times mobile app

For more information, please contact the EE Business press team on:

eebusiness@mcsaatchi.com or 020 7544 3735

Paula Betham t: 020 3617 8463 e: paula.betham@mcsaatchi.com

Tiffini Winn t: 020 7544 3758 m: 07540 180595 e: Tiffini.winn@mcsaatchi.com

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. With more than 15,000 employees and 600 retail stores, EE serves more than 27 million customers on EE, Orange and T-Mobile mobile and broadband plans.

EE runs the UK's biggest and fastest mobile network, having introduced the UK's first and only superfast 4G mobile service in 2012. EE’s 4G coverage currently reaches more than 60% of the population, with plans to cover 98% by the end of 2014. 2G and 3G coverage currently reaches more than 99% of the population. EE's superfast fibre broadband service covers 54% of the UK population, and ADSL broadband service covers 98.7% of the population.

EE has received extensive independent recognition including being ranked the UK's best overall network by RootMetrics®, and Best Network for Business at the 2013 Mobile Industry awards.

Facebook at: www.facebook.com/ee

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LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/company/ee-uk

[1] Competitive rates of finance apply.