UK operator EE has switched on LTE-Advanced network today. It will initially cover London’s Tech City, with companies in the area being selected to access it first. EE has selected Huawei as its technology partner for this network. The LTE-Advanced be rolled out across London throughout 2014

The new network, which has a theoretical maximum speed of 300Mbps, is enabled by carrier aggregation – bringing together 20MHz of 1800MHz spectrum and 20MHz of 2.6GHz spectrum. More features will be trialed throughout 2014.

The EE selected user programme will launch using a CAT6 Huawei router. The device can provide a high speed mobile Wi-Fi connection to up to twenty devices, and devices enabled with 802.11ac can access speeds as high as 200Mbps.

It is expected that the first commercially available Mobile Wi-Fi units will be introduced by summer 2014, also by Huawei, with handsets to follow in the second half of the year.

EE currently has over 1.2million 4G customers, and a 4G network that covers 131 towns and cities – approximately 60% of the population. New price plans that went live last week made 4G available from £18.99 per month, offer consumer and small business data bundles up to 50Gb, and introduced the first pay as you go 4G to the market.