EE cuts price plan after months of consumer research

Just three months after the launch of the UK's first 4G network, Everything Everywhere (EE) has unveiled what it describes as "new price plan offers" to offer customers more choice. <p><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/82910427@N08/8408225564/" title="ee-pa by sarah2066, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8352/8408225564_8f68215fb1_z.jpg" width="600" height="355" alt="ee-pa"></a></p></p>

Just three months after the launch of the UK's first 4G network, Everything Everywhere (EE) has unveiled what it describes as "new price plan offers" to offer customers more choice.  

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Consumer Research

When the BBC spoke to the company's CEO Olaf Swantee last October, he was confident about the strategy: "We really think we've priced it at the sweet spot," he said. "It's all based on months of consumer research."

In light of their research they are introducing in a new £46 a month 20GB Sim-only deal designed for what it calls "super-users". EE says it has introduced this after "listening to customers" but still insists that only a tiny minority - less than 1% - of 4G users have shown a desire to have more than the current 8GB limit.

New price plan

EE entry prices has been cut from £36 to £31 a month - though you still only get 500MB of data for that – which may not be too popular with customers, after all, the whole point of 4G was that lightning-fast speeds meant that you would want to consume far more data.

But maybe it's a question of chicken and egg. If the initial prices had not been so high, more people would have signed up and chosen to use more data. That certainly seems to be the message in a report out today from Deloitte that warns mobile networks of an almost insatiable desire amongst smartphone users for data.

Impact on the mobile industry

The rest of the mobile industry will be watching this move very closely. With Ofcom's 4G auction starting this month, operators will be wondering just how great the demand from customers is going to be and working out what that means as they bid for spectrum.

Read the full article on the BBC website

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