Superfast 4G Comes To Newcastle

4 December 2012, 05:31 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

Superfast 4G mobile phone coverage has come to thousands of people in Newcastle.

The EE network is launching its 4G products and services in 5 cities including Newcastle from today.

11 cities, including Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, already have the service, which was rolled out at the end of October.

The 4G network, which offers speeds up to five times faster than 3G, will be available on the Apple iPhone 5 as well as devices from HTC, Samsung, Nokia and Huawei.

But EE's 4G pricing plans will customers on certain tariffs with extra charges if they go over their download allowances.

Belfast, Derby, Hull and Nottingham will also have access to 4G from today.

The group then plans to roll out the service to further towns, cities and rural areas next year.

The services will allow uninterrupted access to the web on the go, high definition movies to be downloaded in minutes and TV to be streamed without buffering.

The cheapest EE tariff offers just 500mb worth of downloads each month - the equivalent to two one-hour programmes on the BBC iPlayer.

Customers who want to download more than their 500mb allowance will have to pay extra, with a user looking to download eight one-hour programmes a month facing additional charges of up to £180 a year.

There are no plans for unlimited data downloads.