EE has just launched the new ‘EE Complete’ tariff. Designed for power users, it starts from a mammoth £79.99 per month. Customers get 50GB of 4G+ data and an early upgrade 12 months in.
EE has just added a new group of tariff known as EE Complete to their Pay Monthly line-up. Designed for super-heavy users, the new plans don’t come cheap starting at a massive £79.99 per month.
Customers choosing an EE Complete tariff get 50GB of 4G+ data every month. There’s also unlimited minutes and unlimited texts. For people who regularly like to change their smartphone, there’s the option of an early upgrade after 12 months. There’s also the ability to share your data with other devices along with the inclusive picture messages, international phone calls and minutes for calling an 084 or 087 number.
In this article, we review the new EE Complete tariff. We’ll compare it to the EE Regular and EE Extra plans, and we’ll ask whether the EE Complete tariffs offer good value for money. Finally, we’ll look at the best alternatives to EE Complete.
EE Complete VS EE Extra
When choosing a new smartphone from EE, you’ll now be given a choice between three types of tariff: EE Complete, EE Extra and EE Regular. The following table shows a side-by-side comparison of the three types of tariff:
EE Complete
EE Extra
EE Regular
Monthly Price
From £79.99/month
From £19.99/month
From £14.99/month
Minutes
Unlimited
500 – Unlimited
300 – Unlimited
Texts
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Data
50GB
1GB – 20GB
300MB – 10GB
Data Speed
4G+ (Up to 90Mbps)
4G+ (Up to 90Mbps)
4G (Up to 30Mbps)
Tethering
✔
✔
✔
Data Sharing
✔ With Shared Plan
✔ With Shared Plan
✔ With Shared Plan
EU Roaming
✔ Calls & texts only*
✔ Calls & texts only*
✘ Not included*
International calls
✔ 1000 minutes to 5 numbers
✘ From 5p/minute
✘ From 5p/minute
084/087 calls
✔ 200 minutes
✘ 44p/min plus service charge
✘ 44p/min plus service charge
Picture messages
✔ 200 MMS
✘ 40p per MMS
✘ 40p per MMS
Early upgrade
✔ 12 months early
✘ No
✘ No
Availability
View EE Complete Deals »
View EE Extra Deals »
View EE Regular Deals »
* For EE Complete and EE Extra tariffs, you’ll still need to pay to use the internet abroad (currently £3/day). As per forthcoming EU legislation, roaming charges will be scrapped for all customers in June 2017.
In general, we would probably recommend the majority of readers to choose an EE Extra or EE Regular tariff. With EE Complete costing £79.99/month, many people are unlikely to fully benefit from all of the features on the tariff.
Benefits of EE Complete
Alongside the 50GB of 4G+ data every month, there are five key benefits to choosing an EE Complete tariff:
EU Roaming
With EE Complete and EE Extra, you’ll get inclusive calls and texts when travelling in the EU. This applies when you’re travelling to 47 European countries and territories. Unfortunately, one limitation is that data is excluded from the deal: you’ll need to pay £3 per day extra when accessing the internet (the £3 per day will give you 500MB, with the first 100MB at full 4G speeds).
Customers travelling to Europe with an EE Regular plan will need to pay 16.6p/minute when making an outgoing phone call, 4.4p/minute when receiving an incoming call and 5.2p when sending a text message. With an EE Regular plan, it’s £3 per day for 50MB of data in Europe. Alternatively, £4 per day will give you unlimited minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of internet in Europe.
EU roaming can be used in the following 47 countries and territories:
Austria, Azores, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Martinique, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Islands, Romania, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Vatican City
From June 2017, roaming charges within the EU will need to be scrapped for all customers on all mobile networks (this is following the recent EU legislation).
International Calls
With EE Complete, you get 1,000 international minutes to use every month when calling 5 selected numbers. This is only for when you’re in the UK and for when you’re calling a landline or mobile based in another country. The international numbers will need to be based in one of following 50 countries and territories:
Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jersey, Korea (Republic of), Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, USA, Virgin Islands (U.S.)
With EE Extra and EE Regular, you might pay anything from 5p up to £1 per minute when calling these countries (lower rates are normally available with the free Call Abroad add-on). For someone using 100 minutes per month to call India or China, the cost will normally be about £5/month with the Call Abroad add-on.
If you’re likely to use a large number of minutes for calling another country, the EE Complete tariff can save you a fair bit of money. Saying that, we would also recommend shopping around as better deals may be available elsewhere. For instance, some Pay As You Go networks will allow you to call abroad from only 1p/minute. On O2, there’s also a £10/month International Favourites add-on (this will give you 3000 landline minutes and 100 mobile minutes to 3 international numbers).
Calls to 084 and 087 numbers
The EE Complete tariff has 200 minutes per month for calling 084 and 087 numbers.
With EE Extra and EE Regular, you’ll normally pay a per-minute access charge of 44p. You’ll also pay a separate service charge to the company you’re calling. With EE Complete, both the access charge and service charge are covered by EE for the first 200 minutes every month.
On the face of it, this is a fairly decent benefit. For instance, if you were to make a 10-minute phone call to an 084 or 087 number, this will easily cost you more than £5 on an EE Extra or EE Regular tariff. In reality, 084 and 087 numbers are gradually being phased out by a lot of companies (many companies now use an 03 number which is included in your normal minutes). By shopping around on other networks, you can also find a SIM card with much lower access charges (the access charge can be as low as 5p per minute).
Picture Messages
With EE Complete, you get 200 MMS picture messages included every month. These normally cost 40p each on EE Extra and EE Regular.
In general, it’s now fairly rare for people to actually use MMS picture messages. Though MMS was occasionally used in the early days of 3G, many people will now instead share photos through WhatsApp, Snapchat, iMessage or similar applications. When using such applications, you can share a photo without the need to use MMS messages.
12 Month Early Upgrade
With EE Complete, you can upgrade to the latest iPhone every year.
On EE Complete, you can upgrade your handset up to 12 months early. There’s no need to return your old handset and there’s no fee for upgrading it early (though you might need to pay an upfront cost to get your new handset). Your new plan will need to be the same monthly price or a higher monthly price after upgrading. You’ll also have a new minimum term from when you upgrade your handset (i.e. you’ll be locked in for another 24 months after upgrading your handset).
To give an example of how this might work out: at the time of writing, you can buy an iPhone 6s on EE Complete for £79.99/month plus £29.99 upfront. Twelve months later, you’ll be able to upgrade to the iPhone 7 on EE Complete. You’ll pay a small upfront cost to get the new handset and then you’ll continue to pay a monthly charge for your EE Complete service. By repeating this each year, you’ll always be able to have the latest and greatest smartphone (you can also recycle your old handset to get a bit of money back).
One possible complication that’s worth being aware of is that the price of your EE contract increases every March in line with RPI inflation. Assuming inflation of about 2%, your £79.99 monthly bill will go up next year to about £81.60. With an early upgrade, you’ll only be able to choose a tariff of the same or a higher monthly price. This means it could be necessary for you to upgrade next year to the £84.99 monthly tariff (this is assuming the tariff line-up stays the same).
Handsets
EE Complete is currently being offered on flagship smartphones from Apple and Samsung. They include the iPhone 6s, the iPhone 6s Plus and the Galaxy S6 Edge+:
Apple iPhone 6s
Tariff
Minutes
Texts
Internet
Upfront
Monthly
Total Cost
Unlimited
Unlimited
50GB
£29.99
upfront
£79.99
monthly
£1,949.75
Unlimited
Unlimited
50GB
£9.99
upfront
£84.99
monthly
£2,049.75
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
Tariff
Minutes
Texts
Internet
Upfront
Monthly
Total Cost
Unlimited
Unlimited
50GB
£49.99
upfront
£79.99
monthly
£1,969.75
Unlimited
Unlimited
50GB
£9.99
upfront
£84.99
monthly
£2,049.75
Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
Tariff
Minutes
Texts
Internet
Upfront
Monthly
Total Cost
Unlimited
Unlimited
50GB
£29.99
upfront
£79.99
monthly
£1,949.75
The total cost over 24 months is only an approximation (it doesn’t account for the annual price rise in March of each year). If you upgrade your handset early, it’s not necessary to pay for the full 24 months.
For a full list of handsets available on the EE network, you can see the page here on EE’s website.
Alternatives
The EE Complete tariff can work alongside an EE shared plan.
In general, EE Complete is a hugely expensive tariff: most people are unlikely to fully benefit from the offer. It can work well with a shared plan from EE (this way, you can share the 50GB allowance with other people in your family). It can also be a fairly decent offering if you use the international minutes or the 12 month early upgrade offer.
If all you want is a large data allowance, it’s also worth having a look at Three’s all-you-can-eat data (this gives you unlimited data at 4G speeds with up to 12GB of tethering each month).
For international calling, it’s worth also looking at international calling SIM cards and O2’s £10/month International Favourites. In many cases, this could work out cheaper than using EE Complete.
Finally, the 12-month early upgrade is a key benefit of EE Complete (you can get yourself a new handset every 12 months). In many cases, O2 Refresh and Tesco Mobile’s Anytime Upgrade will give you better value for money. They also have greater flexibility (you can change your handset any time you like).
Coverage
EE has 93% population coverage on 4G, with 75% on double-speed 4G.
The EE Complete tariff gives you access to double-speed 4G internet (4G+ for customers in London).
To benefit from the maximum speeds available, you’ll need to live in an area with the higher speed coverage. For normal 4G, there’s currently 93% population coverage across the UK. Double-speed 4G has 75% coverage whilst 4G+ is only available to customers in London.
You can enter your postcode on EE’s online coverage checker to see the level of 4G coverage available in your area.
Check EE Coverage (ee.co.uk) »
With EE Regular, you can only access regular 4G coverage. Double speed 4G and 4G+ speeds are also available on EE Extra.
Keeping Your Phone Number
If you’re changing from another network to join the EE Complete tariff, it’s a straightforward process to keep your existing phone number.
Start by ordering your new phone from EE’s website. Once you’ve done that, contact your old network and ask them for a PAC Code. A PAC Code is nine-digits long and will authorise the transfer of your phone number over to EE.
After your new phone arrives from EE, you can head over to this online form. Here, you can enter your PAC Code to submit it to EE. Once you’ve given EE the PAC Code, the phone number transfer will normally take place on the next working day.
For a step-by-step guide on moving your phone number to EE, please select your current mobile network from the drop down menu below:
PAC Code Finder: Transfer Your Phone Number to EE
Your current network provider:
More Options
More Information
For more information, please see the EE website. You may also find it worthwhile to read our review of the EE Extra tariff.
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