EE turns on 4G roaming (for people visiting the UK)

EE has turned on 4G roaming, but only for people visiting the UK from other countries. Proper roaming for UK EE customers in foreign countries will come early next year, as we reported in September.

4G roaming is less about technical limitations and more about complexity. One of the good things with LTE is that it can run on practically any frequency; the bad thing about this is making sure that handsets bought in one country support the frequencies in another. The iPhone 5, for example, is very limited in its frequency support with a UK handset unable to work on 4G networks in the US.

As it stands, getting 4G roaming is about taking small steps forward. The first step is allowing travellers to the UK access to EE’s network. EE now supports AT&T handsets on its super-fast network, meaning visitors from the US will be able to use the network here.

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EE has said that reciprocal agreements, allowing UK users to roam on overseas 4G networks, will come into play by the first-half of next year. Next year EE will also sign deals with other networks, making roaming possible in more countries. It’s the final piece in the puzzle for 4G, which so far hasn’t had any roaming available in the UK or for UK customers.

Pricing and availability of roaming deals haven’t been announced yet, so we’ll have to wait until early next year when roaming’s turned on to find out what it will cost us.