O2 are today launching the first 4G (LTE – Long Term Evolution) network trial in London and will offer people in the capital access to the new super fast mobile network.
Around 1,000 people will be invited to partake in the trial, this includes business staff at John Lewis. The 4G network itself is made up of over 25 4G sites across London, stretching from Hyde Park to the O2 in Greenwich, it will also cover key areas which include Canary Wharf, Soho, Westminster, South Bank & Kings Cross. Over 40 square kilometers is the combined coverage area.
The trial is due to last for 9 months between now and Summer 2012 with the trialists being provided with Samsung B3730 mobile broadband dongles (there are currently no 4G compatible phones) which are capable of broadband speeds up to 150Mb. According to the Guardian newspaper it is expected that broadband speeds of between 25Mb-50Mb are likely to be the average expected, however when the 4G is rolled out nationally the average speed is expected to drop to between 10Mb-15Mb, this is still faster than the current UK average broadband sped of around 7Mb.
4G uses the same signal space as analogue TV signals, because of this the whole network can’t be turned on until all analogue TV signals have been fully turned off and the auction for the spectrum has taken place (currently scheduled for around 2013). O2 have reportedly spent £500 million upgrading its network this year and probably similar next year to make more of its network to run 4G.
Another impressive stat as to how much 4G is likely to benefit mobile broadband is that the 25 masts that O2 have installed in London for this trial are able to carry more data that O2′s entire 3G network nationally can!
4G is also hopefully going to be a saviour for some areas where fibre broadband isn’t going to be rolled out to so they too can benefit from faster broadband speeds.
There are currently no 4G phones available and in future anyone wanting to connect to a 4G network will need to have a 4G enabled phone, that is why those people trialing the 4G network in London have been given mobile broadband dongles that will be able to fit into laptops and tablet computers.
The Chief Executive Officer for O2, Ronan Dunne, said:
“Today’s launch of the UK’s first 4G London trial network demonstrates our commitment to delivering 4G to our customers at the earliest opportunity. The work we are doing now will lay the foundations for our commercial 4G network when it launches in the UK.“
A trial of 4G mobile broadband has started in Cornwall to test LTE (Long Term Evolution) services and how it performs in the real world dealing with mobile broadband and fixed line broadband.
The trials are being performed between the telecom operators BT and Everything Everywhere (the name for the joint company of Orange & T-Mobile).
LTE services should offer faster mobile broadband speeds and in the trials will use the 800MHz spectrum which was previously used for analogue TV services.
200 people are signed up for the trial in St Newlyn East and South Newquay, 100 with fixed line connections and 100 with mobile broadband connections. The technology will be being tested to see if it is a feasible and reliable option to compliment fixed line broadband services for those in rural areas where currently they live a great distance from their local telephone exchange and struggle to get a decent broadband speed.
Those who are signed up for the free trial will receive the internet connections for free but will need to give feedback about their experiences with using it.
Chief Executive of BT Wholesale, Nigel Stagg, said:
“The final ten per cent of the country is exceedingly difficult to reach with the available standard fixed-line solutions.
Our proof of concept trial in Cornwall will test the capabilities and services that a shared fixed and mobile data network can support.”
BT aim to cover two thirds of the UK with it’s new fibre broadband network by 2015, however, with the remaining parts of the country not covered due to financial restrictions (BT will struggle to recoup on their investment as easily with many rural areas) it could well be that 4G technology is what will be looked at to help give the remaining homes without fibre a faster broadband connection.
Ofcom are due to start auctions of the 800MHz network next year.
The UK is to be the first country in Europe to use “White Space” technology in the TV spectrum to deliver broadband to rural areas after Ofcom gave it the go-ahead.
How the “White Space” technology works is by searching for the “gaps” in the airwaves that have been reserved for use for TV broadcasting, the “gaps” are known as “White Spaces”. These White Spaces are then able to be used to transmit wireless signals which is where they can come in well for rural broadband.
The wireless signals to be used in the White Space of the spectrum will be able to travel greater distances but will work in a similar way to a standard WiFi connection.
Ed Richards. the Ofcom Chief Executive, said:
“At an early stage Ofcom identified the potential of White Spaces, which are currently lying vacant all around us.
Within Europe, we have been leading the way to try to harness this capacity without causing harmful interference to existing users of the spectrum.
The solution we have devised creates the opportunity to maximise the efficient use of spectrum and open the door to the development of a new and exciting range of consumer and business applications.”
Ofcom state the following new applications that could follow by using this new technology:
Enhanced Wi-Fi: The majority of current Wi-Fi devices operate in spectrum at 2.4GHz. White Spaces could provide new capacity, while boosting the range of devices, potentially enabling Wi-Fi networks that stretch across towns and cities. This is thanks to the lower frequency of TV White Spaces (typically between 470 and 790MHz).
Rural broadband: White Spaces could be used to provide rural locations with broadband services. In practice, this could be achieved by building a network of transmitters that use White Spaces to link remote houses and villages to larger towns that are already connected to the internet. Trials are currently being undertaken by industry to test this on the island of Bute, Scotland.
Machine-to-Machine Communications: A relatively new area of innovation called Machine-to-Machine Communications allows information to be exchanged between devices. Many experts believe that in the coming years billions of devices will be able to connect wirelessly and via the internet for a range of applications. White spaces could be used to wirelessly transmit this information, using its additional range to reach deep inside buildings. This could be especially useful for wirelessly measuring utility meters in consumers’ homes – just one of a wide number of potential applications. Other examples include using White Spaces to keep an inventory of stock owned by a business, or making it easier for scientists to conduct research by automating the measurement of different readings.
It is expected that the White Space technology will launch in the UK in 2013 and it won’t be under licence.
Free mobile broadband is to be made available to 11 rural communities from mobile network 3.
The 11 villages are set to be offered free mobile broadband dongles and free internet access from 3 Mobile broadband in an attempt to give them an internet connection that they can use. For the next 12 months the residents of the 11 remote villages will have access to free internet access courtesy of 3 mobile.
3 Mobile said that they are doing this to help fulfil the governments pledge that everyone in the UK will have access to the internet by 2012 with their “Race Online 2012″ scheme. They will also be keen to show how 3G mobile broadband is a viable and useful option for those struggling with traditional wired internet to get them selves online.
Some cynics believe that it is more to do with buttering up the government to get themselves some of the wireless spectrum.
Hugh Davies, Three’s director of corporate affairs, told the BBC:
“We hope to demonstrate that mobile needs to be a crucial part of the strategy to tackle notspots.”
Dave Dyson, Three’s Chief Executive, said:
“We’ve built the UK’s most extensive 3G network using high-frequency spectrum, if we gain access to low-frequency spectrum like 800Mhz we will be able to significantly improve both indoor and outdoor rural coverage for the UK’s smartphone and mobile broadband users.
Low-frequency spectrum on a network as big as ours is a real notspot-killer.”
The first place to benefit form the free mobile broadband is Gringley-on-the-Hill in North Nottinghamshire where a total of 30 mobile dongles and free data access cards will be offered. The remaining 10 locations are yet to be chosen.
eBay says poor mobile broadband connections are costing UK online retailers around £1.3 billion per year in un-completed sales.
eBay commissioned the research into m-commerce to find out where it could potentially lead to with results finding that in the next four years mobile shopping could increase four-fold to £4.5 billion by 2016 and this increasing by a further £13 billion by 2021!
Aside from these impressive growth figures the research also found that mobile spending in some rural areas such as the Scottish Highlands and rural Wales is at least 20% lower than the national average and this accounted for around 16% of the country being classed a “m-commerce not-spot”.
More than one third of consumers also failed to complete a transaction on their mobile phone due to mobile broadband issues causing problems.
eBay have done this research ahead of the 4G mobile broadband auction next year and have called on Ofcom, the UK Communications Regulator to do more to address consumer frustrations when setting the rules for the new 4G services. eBay see m-commerce as being able to play a part in helping the UK’s economic recovery.
The research was carried out by Verdict and was conducted with 1,500 customers during the middle of May.
The fastest mobile broadband in the UK is provided by O2 according to a study done by Ofcom.
The study done last year between September and December was done by Ofcom in partnership with Epitiro, the broadband monitoring specialists, found that the average mobile broadband speed was 1.5Mb with an average web page taking 8.5 seconds to download, this was done using dongles and datacards and did not include smartphones.
In areas where there was very good 3G coverage the average mobile broadband speeds were 2.1Mb which during peak evening hours fell to 1.7Mb with basic web pages taking around 2.2 seconds to download on average.
Between the 5 mobile broadband providers in the UK it was O2 mobile broadband that on average performed the fastest and had a lower latency that 3, Orange and Vodafone. O2 averaged around 2.5-3Mb speeds while at the other end of the scale Orange were averaging around 1-1.4Mb speeds.
Other interesting parts that the study found was that 17% of UK households use mobile broadband services to access online services with 7% using it as their only means of internet access, a 4% rise in a year from the 3% the previous year.
Over 4.2 million broadband speed tests were run for the study with 97 static test probes across the UK being used to gather the results.
Trials of 4G super fast wireless broadband are to start in the Newlyn East area of south Newquay, Cornwall that are currently unable to get any broadband service.
The service is going to be made available to these people living in the “notspot” areas to trial the 4G technology that is being used by BT and Everything Everywhere who are the owners of Orange and TR-Mobile. The new 4G service is also known as LTE (Long Term Evolution).
Although theoretically the 4G service will be able to offer mobile broadband speeds of up to 150Mb is is unlikely that speeds anyway near to these will be realised. It is more likely that a target of around 10Mb is what the companies will be aiming for with the range possible being from 2Mb-40Mb. The faster speeds may be possible in the early hours of the morning such as 3am in the morning but regular usage will mean this is not a speed most will see.
The trials will start in September and run for at least 3 months with 100 customers involved with testing it on mobiles and 100 testing it via fixed lines.
Although LTE services have been launched in America and some parts of Europe this trial will be one of the first that actually combines mobile and fixed line together.
Last week we ran a story (here) about calls for the 800MHz spectrum to be required to be made available to 98% of the UK rather than 95% when it is auctioned off next year.
BT Broadband customers who have an Apple iPad from today will have access to a free app that will mean that they can connect to BTs 2 million UK hotspots when they are out and about.
The free app is available today from iTunes and will enable BT Broadband customers to connect to free WiFi via their iPad, the service also helps point users in the direction of their nearest BT hotspot. BT broadband customers get unlimited free WiFi from BT FON and BT Openzone hotspots. BT FON hotspots are created by BT Broadband customers allowing other BT FON customers to connect to their wireless internet for free and in exchange BT Broadband customers can use other BT FON hotpsots.
BT Retail Consumers managing director, John Petter said:
“Millions of BT broadband customers already get free access to the UK’s biggest wi-fi network. Our free app for the iPhone and Android devices has proved a huge hit with over 400,000 downloads to date, so launching an app for the iPad was naturally the next step. The app makes accessing wi-fi so simple you don’t even have to think about it and represents real value to our customers at a time when more and more people are accessing the internet when they are on the move.“
This is a video that BT have made showing iPad customer show easy it is and what they need to do to connect their iPad for free.
The take up of Superfast fibre broadband in the UK was at just 0.2% at the end of 2009 according to the latest Ofcom report.
However, 2010 has been an important year with regards to the UK and investment in Next Generation Broadband with BT starting the roll out of their own fibre network (BT Infinity) that by 2015 should cover around 66% of UK households. As tends to be the case when it comes to super fast broadband, Japan was leading the way with 34.4% of Japanese households using fibre broadband connections.
What the UK has seen increase at an huge rate is the take up of Smartphones with the year between January 2009 and January 2010 seeing smartphone take up rising by 70%, with 18 out of every 100 people now using a Smartphone. The place with the highest use of Smartphones (of the comparator European countries looked at for the study) is Italy with over a quarter of subscribers using a Smartphone.
Despite the UK being one of the places with the highest internet use via smartphones and mobile phones we are lagging behind hugely compared to other countries for the theoretical maximum mobile download speeds.
“Human Hotspots” are to hit the streets over the next few weeks in various UK locations as part of an advertising campaign by 3 Mobile.
The “Human Hotspots” will be offering free access to mobile Wi-Fi, also known as MiFi. The 3 Mobile MiFi connection will be available to people who are in an area where one of the “Human Hotspots” are located. They should be relatively easy to spot as they will be dressed all in white (although with snow forecast towards the end of the week then maybe they won’t be so easy to spot).
What MiFi does is share out a wireless internet connection through a battery powered wireless portable router which then allows other internet enabled devices to connect to it, such as laptops or smartphones.
Matthew Halfin from Three Mobile said:
“People are now using mobile internet as part of their everyday lifestyle, and we think it’s important that we’re able to support our customers by providing them with reliable and fast connectivity for wherever they want to go online.
“Three’s 3G network was designed for the mobile internet, so we can give people the very best online experience with their mobile gadgets. This will be particularly important over the Christmas period as a third of people head online with their new mobile toys.“
The reason 3 are launching this latest campaign is because they did a survey and found that people are in need of reliable and strong 3G connections which is what they feel the 3 MiFi device is able to offer customers.
The top 10 places that 3 Mobile’s research said people use their mobile gadgets were as follows:
In the living room – 72%
In the bedroom – 48%
At Work – 29%
On public transport – 24%
On the toilet – 14%
Walking – 14%
In the bathroom – 12%
In the garden – 11%
At a bar/club – 9%
While shopping – 8%
The Human Hotpsots will be in the following locations over the coming weeks:
London (Friday Nov 19), Cardiff (Friday Nov 26), Bristol (Saturday Nov 27), Nottingham (Saturday Dec 4) and Newcastle (Saturday Dec 11).
The 11 villages are set to be offered free mobile broadband dongles and free internet access from 3 Mobile broadband in an attempt to give them an internet connection that they can use. For the next 12 months the residents of the 11 remote villages will have access to free internet access courtesy of 3 mobile.
The study done last year between September and December was done by Ofcom in partnership with Epitiro, the broadband monitoring specialists, found that the average mobile broadband speed was 1.5Mb with an average web page taking 8.5 seconds to download, this was done using dongles and datacards and did not include smartphones.
The “Human Hotspots” will be offering free access to mobile Wi-Fi, also known as MiFi. The 3 Mobile MiFi connection will be available to people who are in an area where one of the “Human Hotspots” are located. They should be relatively easy to spot as they will be dressed all in white (although with snow forecast towards the end of the week then maybe they won’t be so easy to spot).