EE 'crazy not to embrace the enterprise with high-speed 4G' says Teliqo

'Nobody needs 120Mbps for a telephone call'

Everything Everywhere is "crazy" not to more widely embrace the enterprise with its new high speed 4G rollout, says voice-over-IP company Teliqo's commercial director, Russell Lux.

Saying that customers in the consumer sector, which Teliqo views as EE's main target in the telco market, "don't need 120 megabits per second (Mbps)", Lux described EE's aim to offer 120Mbps, rising to 300Mbps within a year, as a "crazy, crazy, crazy" decision.

"They'll only get profit from value-added contracts, and you're not going to get that from consumers," said Lux. "They could upsell on mobile device management, managed virtual private networks, managed IP. But they're showing no interest. They say ‘it's not what we do, not how we do it'".

Lux accused EE of angling the coverage at consumers because they are less likely than enterprise customers to be able to judge a business case.

"Do we need 120Mbps for a telephone call? Or even a video call? Of course we don't," said Lux.

"But I'd say the majority of their customers just don't know this, and I suppose EE takes advantage of this. The average joe would just want to go with the guy who gives him higher numbers."

Lux also cites a belief that EE is looking towards a public share offering IPO as a contributing factor.

"They need customers, right? Their figures aren't looking too good, they've got some KPIs [key performance indicators] to hit, the rumours are they're floating [on the stock market] at some point, so I guess they're trying to drive towards that float," said Lux.

Lux, whose VoIP business works with large telcos to provide services, also doubts the short-term ability of provider Three to make a significant dent in the 4G market after January's bandwidth auctions.

"Three is using the same space/frequencies as EE is using, and I don't think there's going to be any major differences until all the other providers come on board: Vodafone, O2 and so on."

"I don't see how Three is going to make a play against EE in the short term, except drawing on its own customer base," continued Lux.

"I think its service is weak in London. We've had a bad experience ourselves with them on the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) side, and I actually think they're as advanced, when it comes to working with business users, as opposed to consumers. We've actually seen a lot of people move from Three to 4Gee."