EE to improve 4G coverage and move customer services to the UK after criticism

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.

Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.

Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

EE has promised to bring its 4G coverage to almost all of the country and move its customer services to the UK, after mounting criticism.

The phone network is to use the proceeds from a huge Government deal to pay for improvements to its service.

EE was fined £1 million in 2015, over customer service failings. It has now said that it intends to address user complaints by rolling out its 4G coverage and improving the way it interacts with customers.

The network’s much faster 4G internet will be brought to 95 per cent of the UK landmass, the company has said. That will involve bringing it to more remote parts of the country.

At the moment, 4G coverage is measured according to the population, rather than as a proportion of the landmass. That means that internet coverage is usually strong in densely-populated cities - but much more lacking in the countryside.

But now the company will look to cover 95 per cent of the country, bringing its service to more emote places like the Shetland Isles and Isle of Scilly, which will have 4G turned on this week. Those places have very few residents, meaning that they have sometimes gone overlooked, but hundreds of thousands of people visit it and are unable to use the quickest internet.

EE’s commitment to 95 per cent coverage of the UK landmass are far beyond those imposed by the government, which has asked it to provide voice and text coverage for 90 per cent of the country.

The company also said that it will move its customer service back to the UK and Ireland by the end of 2016. It has said that while using overseas call centres is much cheaper, it tends to lead to unhappy customers and so can cost companies more in the long term - though EE’s CEO has not ruled out fare increases to pay for the change.