Wednesday last week, EE announced that it has reached 10 million 4G customers making it Europe’s biggest 4G network. To mark the occasion, EE has released its latest 4GEE Mobile Living Index (EEMLI), which analyses EE’s 4G mobile data use and customer trends since early 2013.
As 4G data overtakes 3G for the first time, EEMLI predicts EE's network to carry more than one Exabyte (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data per year by 2018. This is triple the amount of data the network carries today, 16 times more than what was carried over the 3G network in 2012, said EE.
According to EE, the increase in data is being fuelled by video and social media (now representing 51% of data on the network), as well as by new industries and sectors looking towards mobile connectivity to better serve businesses and consumers. The EEMLI shows a 63% rise in the use of health-related apps on the network since August last year, as more reliable connectivity encourages people to use their phones in new ways. Some other interesting findings from EEMLI are as follows:
Seamless streaming: YouTube rules the roost as the most popular service, driving 67% of overall video streaming
Mobile mapping: Apple maps remains the most popular source of GPS, representing 73% of traffic. Google maps follows at 21%
Mobile gaming: PlayStation wins battle of the consoles, securing 37% of network gaming traffic. Meanwhile Steam and Xbox Live follow with a 28% and 19% share respectively.
Email: Microsoft email services (MSN and Outlook) are the clear favourites for 4GEE customers, garnering 45% of overall email traffic
Music: Almost half (44%) of all music streaming is via Soundcloud, well ahead of Spotify (29%) and Deezer (10%)
Olaf Swantee, CEO, EE
EE pioneered 4G in the UK and we’re determined to keep the country at the forefront of innovation. We were the first to launch 4G+, and the first to introduce WiFi Calling in the UK. We are bringing our 4G network coverage to where it is needed most – enhancing the quality of life of people who live in the most rural and underserved parts of the country. Our network advances have truly unlocked the power of the mobile internet, so much so that customer usage is doubling and we predict our 4G network, built for capacity, will comfortably handle more than an Exabyte of data per year by 2018.
