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EE 4G coming to 17 new towns by March, is yours on the list?

Smaller towns including Luton, Coventry and Reading are next in line for a dose of 4G.

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Luke Westaway Senior editor
Luke Westaway is a senior editor at CNET and writer/ presenter of Adventures in Tech, a thrilling gadget show produced in our London office. Luke's focus is on keeping you in the loop with a mix of video, features, expert opinion and analysis.
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Luke Westaway
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Open wide Britain -- like a cat that requires medicine, EE has wrapped you in a tea towel and is pushing 4G services down your throat.

17 new towns will be enjoying access to the speedy new network by March 2013 EE says, including Coventry, Leicester, Luton and Wolverhampton. The full list of new towns is below -- have a peek and see if your location is on the list.

Joining the list of towns benefiting from 4G are:

  • Bradford
  • Chelmsford
  • Coventry
  • Doncaster
  • Dudley
  • Leicester
  • Luton
  • Newport
  • Reading
  • Rotherham
  • St Albans
  • Sunderland
  • Sutton Coldfield
  • Walsall
  • Watford
  • West Bromwich
  • Wolverhampton

EE also says that Derby, Newcastle and Nottingham received coverage last week, with Belfast, Hull, Maidenhead and Slough due to get 4G before the end of this year.

Mobile coverage is never for certain, with all sorts of conditions affecting the signal you actually receive. Even if your city has been officially anointed with 4G, you'd be wise to stick your postcode into EE's coverage checker and make sure your home is covered before buying a contract.

Spotty coverage is one obstacle currently stopping mobile shoppers from investing in the new-to-the-UK 4G tech, but EE's high prices and tight data limits are a bigger barrier for many smart phone owners looking to make the switch.

EE recently upped its data allowance by about 60 per cent, but only for dongles -- not for phones. The cheapest smart phone tariff (which costs a wallet-squashing £36 per month) still only gets you 500MB a month, which isn't much for a next-generation speedy service.

Our speed tests suggest you'll get significantly faster speeds with 4G, but at the moment it's still not particularly practical to switch. O2, Vodafone and Three are expected to launch their own rival services next year, following the 4G auction.

Is your town in EE's sights? Will you pay extra for 4G, or wait until it's cheaper? Tell me in the comments or on our Facebook wall.

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Watch this: 4GEE phones speed test