Everything Everywhere (EE), the combined business of T-Mobile and Orange, has announced that it is launching the promised 4G network very soon. In fact, it has been suggested that the roll out could be within weeks.

The company also announced that 16 UK cities are in line for this upgrade, including Birmingham, London, Cardiff and Bristol. These cities should benefit from the upgrade by Christmas.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, remarked that this would be ”the greatest 4G network in the world”.

EE also said that a number of smartphone manufacturers would be among the first to benefit from the 4G rollout. These include Nokia and Huawei. Apple is also thought likely to benefit when its iPhone 5 is finally released. One industry expert, Olaf Swantee, called the change “the communications equivalent of the change the jet engine made over steam”. He was, of course, comparing 4G with the older 3G network. 4G is considered to be five times faster.

Although 16 cities will be covered by Christmas this year, there will still be whole swathes of the country that will not be able to access 4G technology yet. A spokesperson for Everything Everywhere said that it will be 2014 before there will be 98% coverage.

Moreover, one commentator also believes that EE should be very careful about promising too much. Mark Newman of Informa Telecoms and Media said: “EE will have to be careful about over-promising on 4G capabilities particularly given that the network will only cover 30% of the population by the end of this year.”