EE the company formed from the merger of 1800MHz operators Orange (owned by France Telecom) and T-Mobile (owned by Deutsche Telekom) has the jump in 4G services in the UK. EE launched at the end of October 2012 and now has 500,000 4G subscriptions and nearly 55% of the population covered by its 1800 MHz LTE 4G network. It plans to go to 85% coverage by the end of 2014. Meanwhile O2 (owned by Telefonica of Spain) and Vodafone are rolling out a joint 4G network which they plan to launch in 3Q 2013 with the fourth UK operator Hutchison owned Three UK is planning to market 4G from the end of the year.
EE had the massive advantage of licensing almost all the 1800MHz spectrum in the UK (3UK has a small 1800 MHz holding). The others had to wait to acquire 4G spectrum at auction concluded in February 2013 to get access to new 4G spectrum in the 800MHz and 2.6 GHz bands. The results of the auction were;
| Winning bidder | Spectrum won | Base price |
| Everything Everywhere Ltd | 2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz and 2 x 35 MHz of 2.6 GHz |
£588,876,000 |
| Hutchison 3G UK Ltd | 2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz | £225,000,000 |
| Niche Spectrum Ventures Ltd (a subsidiary of BT Group plc) | 2 x 15 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired) |
£186,476,000 |
| Telefónica UK Ltd | 2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz (coverage obligation lot) |
£550,000,000 |
| Vodafone Ltd | 2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz, 2 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz and 1 x 25 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired) |
£790,761,000 |
| Total | £2,341,113,000 |
The issue for all but EE will be the ability of most of the existing 4G phones like the iPhone to operate in the new UK 4G spectrum bands. The 800 MHz band will give deeper and wider coverage than EE’s current 1800 MHz so in the longer term EE’s competitors will gain on its head start but only when they can get a good range of popular handsets.