EE delays 4G SIM-only tariff launch by two weeks

EE has revealed via Twitter that the launch of its 4G LTE SIM-only contract plans will be delayed.

The company expected to bring its SIM-only tariffs to customers from today, but an official Tweet revealed it will now roll out the contract plans within the next two weeks.

SIM-only 4G contracts will likely prove as popular as their 3G counterparts, owing to the fact that they’re much cheaper than signing up to one with a phone bundled in, and often cover shorter rolling periods with more opportunity to switch to another provider at shorter notice.

It’s also a good option if you’ve splashed out on a high-end smartphone and have no plans to change it for the foreseeable future.

EE revealed its 4G price plans in late October and quickly came under fire for the expensive costs outlined.

Many critics pointed to the cheapest plan still being expensive at £36 per month for 24 months while providing not enough data allowance for 4G – 500MB a month which on 4G would be used up very quickly indeed.

EE countered by suggesting that it’s simply a faster way of consuming the same amount of data, but the response from critics pointed out that faster speeds will cause customers to want to use more data exponentially.

In terms of sensible levels of data usage, the cheapest plans are the £41 per month and £46 per month with 1GB and 3GB of data respectively.

The SIM-only plans are expected to start from £21 per month, presumably this starting point has the same 500MB of data per month allowance as the £36 plan which includes a handset, meaning you'll be looking at higher costs for reasonable amounts of data.