EE, the joint venture between France Telecom's Orange and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile, is to start offering its business customers data sharing plans across entire fleets of mobile devices.
The UK's biggest mobile operator, and currently only UK operator to offer 4G services so far, already has plans for large, small and medium enterprises to share voice and text plans.
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However, now, as the amount of data use is becoming as important as phone calls and more essential than text messaging, the network is allowing businesses to select from a range of new 'Shared 4GEE' plans from July 17.
Medium businesses will be able to choose an amount of data for employees to share, from £160 a month for 20GB worth of data. Customers can then add individual data "boosters" for employees that need access to more data, this starts at £12 per month for 2GB at 4G speeds. Employees can be added to the plan for a fee of £3 per month each.
Larger corporate customers can also enter into a data-sharing plan, but plans are structured as a charge per user to make it easier to allocate to different cost centres, EE said. Pricing starts at £10 per month per user for 1GB of data, but this is reduced if customers upgrade to large data pots. Employees can be added for a fee of £3 per month each.
Smaller businesses will be allowed to connect up to five devices to one of EE's 4G plans - whether that is for sharing data with colleagues or for an employee using multiple devices themselves. Customers will also be able to share "data passes" when travelling abroad with a 'Shared 4GEE' plan, as long as they are in the same country or region, EE said.
Overall, the mobile network claimed that customers would pay less than they would if they put employees or devices on separate 4G contracts.
The mobile operator said that the £11 per month 1GB 4GEE plan would be replaced by a £12 per month 2GB 4GEE plan.
In a busy day for EE, the firm also announced pay-as-you-go mobile broadband plans for consumers, starting from £15 for a data SIM that comes preloaded with 2GB of mobile data for 30 days.
Following rival O2's Wallet, EE said it was partnering with MasterCard to launch its first mobile contactless service dubbed 'Cash on Tap'.
The service will allow EE's 4G customers to make payments through their mobile devices and the downloadable app. It will be accepted at over 230,000 outlets nationwide, including McDonald's, Boots and Greggs.
Meanwhile, EE will officially switch on its double-speed 4G in 12 UK cities tomorrow. Average speeds for 4G users in those cities is expected to be 24-30Mbps, EE said, before claiming that the 4G network will now be "unequalled in Europe, faster than mobile networks in the US and Japan, and equal to the best in South Korea".
