As we stumble towards a very different Christmas Day, the crazed online-shopping might be slowing – but it won’t be for long. Already there’s emails flooding into our inbox about the January and Boxing Day sales, with EE among the first. They’ve unveiled some early-bird January sales offers, including savings of on iPhone, Samsung, and OPPO devices.

Best of all? It starts today!

All of these deals end on February 1st and you can save £174 on the iPhone SE (no upfront cost, £31 per month on a 10GB Essential Plan) or save £192 on the Samsung FE 5G. That’s on a 100GB monthly plan for a £30 upfront cost at £51 per month.

Other deals include the OPPO A72 for £21 on a 4GB Essential Plan – £21 per month (no upfront), £96 off the Samsung A41 (£25 per month on the same plan with a £30 upfront cost), the Samsung A51 for £33 per month on a 10GB Essential Plan (£30 upfront cost) and the OPPO Find X2 Lite for £31 per month on the same plan with the same upfront cost.

Get involved on the EE January Sale here.

The post Don’t stop shopping! The New Year Sales are ready! is original content from Coolsmartphone. If you see it on another news website, please let us know.

I do have to kick myself at times. Sitting in this hospital, I’ve got a gloriously fast 5G connection on Vodafone and unlimited data to enjoy. The speeds massively outclass the WiFi in here and it’s all just so straightforward and worry-free.

Back in the late ’90s, phones looked very different. The internet, my friend, was just a dream.

WAP technology, remember that? I think we can all agree that it was royally terrible on so many levels. Imagine a stripped-down version of a website which has then been stripped down even more, perhaps to a page with 4 links on it, and you’re almost there. Dial-up for your mobile phone.

Honestly, don’t listen to people who talk about how much of a revelation it was, because the GPRS (anyone remember that) connection was hilariously slow and the overall experience was duller than you could possibly imagine.

This YouTube video gives a little taster of what 1999 was like if you used a monochrome WAP phone (around 20 seconds in)…

..and that guy was drunk when he filmed that. No way was he that happy clicking through 14 pages to get his cricket scores. No way.

Oh and if you’re really interested to find out more, this unbelievably dry YouTube demonstration will display the full horror.

Back then, these were the phones being offered, but already we were also starting to see lower-priced handsets getting more functionality. This Currys ad shows some of the non-contract phones of the time…

Look at that – you could talk to your phone and it would make the call for you. That, let me tell you, was a revelation in 1999!

Not that I remember any of this you understand…

The post Don’t moan about 4G or 5G, you guys don’t know you’re born! is original content from Coolsmartphone. If you see it on another news website, please let us know.

There’s EE 4G now available on more than 322,000 miles of roads in Great Britain. It’s thanks to 160 new EE 4G sites built this year and a general expansion in the coverage.

EE have also extended coverage of UK national parks, with more than two thirds of total area covered now.

The new EE sites will cater for 40% year on year increase in 4G data usage, and provide the infrastructure for future 5G rollout. It just proves that there’s a lot of life left in 4G yet. EE has the largest geographical 4G coverage at 85%.

EE has also partnered with the Scottish Government, the Home Office, the Scottish Futures Trust and WHP Telecoms Ltd. to bring 4G to some of Scotland’s most rural locations for the first time.

Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s Consumer business, told us…

Having access to a resilient and reliable mobile network has never been more important. Our 4G network covers more of the UK’s geography than any other, and we’re continuing to invest in it right across the UK to keep our customers connected and bring coverage to rural areas for the very first time. 4G forms the basis of our award-winning 5G network, and with this investment we’ll be able to roll out the latest mobile technology to even more parts of the UK.

EE provide an Emergency Service Network for the emergency services, so getting 4G coverage in the traditionally hard-to-reach areas is important.

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Christmas Day tends to be a time when we all make lots of calls, and we’ll no doubt be making even more this year as the coronavirus restrictions keep us apart more than ever. Data and text usage will also be on the rise, so it’s good to see Tesco Mobile delivering free UK data, minutes and texts on the big day.

It’s all part of Tesco Mobile’s “Reconnects” mission, which sees them partner with homelessness charity Crisis to bring connection to those experiencing homelessness this Christmas.

The free bundle will be automatically applied to customers’ accounts at no extra cost and will be available on Christmas Day from midnight to midnight.

Tom Denyard, CEO of Tesco Mobile, told us..

We know many families can’t be together this Christmas, so we hope this ‘little help’ gives our customers the chance to connect with all their loved ones outside their bubble this Christmas.

Head to tescomobile.com/littlehelps for more information.

The post Tesco Mobile to deliver free unlimited UK data, minutes and texts on Christmas Day is original content from Coolsmartphone. If you see it on another news website, please let us know.

If you’re looking for lots of data on a SIM-only deal, these SMARTY offers will deliver just that. You can, for example, get unlimited and unrestricted data for £20 per month and they’ll give you £15 account credit with our special link. It’s a 1 month rolling plan, so even if you just test it out, you can effectively get unlimited data for a month for just £5. That’s excellent as a second SIM card if you’ve got the extra slot in your phone.

SMARTY is owned by Three, and they’ve seen their customers’ average data usage (per customer, per month) rising above 15GB barrier for the first time ever.

The figure was reached in October 2020, as data usage grew 50% since the beginning of 2020. This despite more people working from home and generally using their WiFi to get on the web.

Three have recently invested £2 billion into network and IT transformation, enhancing their 4G network and rolling out the UK’s fastest 5G network with average speeds in excess of 200Mbps. The network has signed backhaul agreements with a number of partners including SSE Enterprise Telecoms and Colt (laying almost 30,000km of fibre!) and are expecting to have around 1,000 5G sites by the end of this month. They’re also adding 20 new state of the art data centres for reduced latency when using data.

Get the full stats in this Three report.

The post Three sees average per customer data usage smash through the 15GB barrier is original content from Coolsmartphone. If you see it on another news website, please let us know.

If you choose an unlimited plan with Vodafone there’s three different types. All will deliver unlimited data, but the maximum speeds differ.

As an example, “Unlimited Lite” delivers speeds of up to 2 Mbps, whereas “Unlimited” gives you up to 10 Mbps and “Unlimited Max” provides the fastest possible speeds.

So, when Vodafone recently announced that they were giving away 30 days of unlimited data to their pay monthly customers, my geek brain kicked into gear and I assumed that there’d be some sort of speed restriction. Y’know, some sort of catch.

So, after getting my confirmation text, I decided to check the speeds on a 5G mast.

The results, whilst sat in a car park of a busy shopping centre, were very good and on par with my speedy home Virgin fibre connection. It seems that my assumption was wrong – the 30 days of unlimited data isn’t restricted in terms of speed at all. Fair play Vodafone…

Vodafone 5G speeds

What’s interesting about this is that it’s perhaps even more real world than my previous test. I’m using the same mast, which is somewhere I can’t see, as many hundreds of others in the same shopping centre.

Oh and yes, you’ll notice that the upload speed isn’t too much to write home about. Whether that’s due to the backhaul upstream or the 5G speed itself, who knows, but it’s strangely similar to my home broadband upstream figure too…

My home Virgin Broadband fibre speeds

As mentioned before, we’re reaching a point now where – with 5G especially – mobile networks can compete and beat a lot of wired broadband alternatives.

The post That Vodafone unlimited Christmas data is full speed too is original content from Coolsmartphone. If you see it on another news website, please let us know.