EE's superfast 4G data traffic surpasses 3G for the first time

Services using superfast 4G mobile have overtaken 3G for the first time, according to Britain's largest wireless network, underpinned by hunger for video, social media and gaming while on the move.

Total 4G data traffic surpassed 3G traffic for the first time on the network operated by EE, driven in particular by use of mobile video services such as YouTube.

EE said that the availability of rapid mobile internet has meant a change in how people are using phones, pointing in particular to the rise in health-related applications.

The group found that more than one in four customers use some form of mobile health monitoring, from calorie counting to tracking blood pressure, and a 63 per cent rise in the use of health-related apps on the network since August last year.

EE already works with the NHS in Doncaster to securely transmit images of patients' moles and skin lesions to a team of skin specialists for rapid diagnosis by 4G.

The company predicts that data usage will continue to rise rapidly, with expectations that at least a one exabyte of data (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) will be carried across the network per year by 2018.

This is the equivalent of streaming 38,000 years of high-definition films - triple the amount of data the network carries at present, and 16 times more than over the 3G network in 2012.

EE, which is in the process of being acquired by BT for £12.5bn, is the first European operator to have more than 10m 4G customers. EE was the first to launch 4G in the UK, and has since pushed hardest to provide 4G services to most places around the country. EE's 4G coverage reaches more than 87 per cent of the UK population.

Olaf Swantee, EE's chief executive, said that the 4G network coverage was helping the "quality of life of people who live in the most rural and underserved parts of the country".

<

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

EE said that YouTube was the most popular mobile service, driving about two-thirds of overall video streaming, while Apple maps remained the most popular location service with about three quarters of traffic.

Almost half of all music streaming is from Soundcloud, ahead of Spotify at 29 per cent and Deezer with 10 per cent.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation