EE launched its LTE-Advanced service in central London offering peak download speeds of 150Mb/s, although initially it will only be available on two Samsung devices.

The operator is offering the service on the Samsung Note 4 and Samsung Alpha.

The company argued both devices were mainstream and told Mobile World Live they will be followed by others in 2015. Mifi devices and tablets are also on the roadmap, said EE.

Mobile data speeds in its ‘4G+’ areas will “regularly be up to 90Mb/s,” claimed the operator, and customers can see speeds as high as 150Mb/s if they sign up to the 4GEE Extra or Corporate 4GEE plan.

The operator said the faster speeds are facilitated by ‘carrier aggregation’ – combining 20MHz of 1800MHz and 20MHz of 2.6GHz spectrum.

EE has plans to expand the LTE-Advanced network to cover greater London by next June. Other major cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester will then follow.

In the summer EE planned to launch LTE-Advanced early next year.  Now, however, its plans have appeared to come forward although the company said it was always the plan to make the network live in 2014.

Bengt Nordstrom, co-founder and CEO of mobile consultancy Northstream, this week told Mobile World Live he is excited about the prospects for LTE-Advanced, and described the technology’s fast speeds as “a huge leap forward” with immediate benefit for users.

He also believes that LTE-Advanced can be used as a substitute for fibre broadband in rural areas, particularly in the developing world, where infrastructure is not available.