London 4G mobile phone services from EE in time for Christmas (From News Shopper)
Get involved: Send pictures, video, news and views - text NEWS SHOPPER to 80360 or email us
London 4G mobile phone services from EE in time for Christmas
12:14pm Tuesday 11th September 2012 in News By Simon Bull
The owner of Orange and T-Mobile has announced its plans to launch 4G products and services later this year
HI-TECH 4G mobile phone services are being switched on in London ahead of a full-on launch in time for Christmas.
The new era for mobile phones has begun with Orange and T-Mobile owner Everything Everywhere, which has been renamed as EE, unveiling its plans to launch the country's first superfast 4G products and services.
The 4G network, which offers speeds up to five times faster than 3G, will be available on HTC, Samsung, Nokia and Huawei devices, as well as "one more to come", which is widely expected to be Apple's iPhone 5.
EE's competitors, including Vodafone, 3 and O2, have threatened legal action over telecoms regulator Ofcom's decision last month to allow EE to launch 4G on its existing network.
The 4G services will allow uninterrupted access to the web on the go, high-definition movies to be downloaded in minutes and TV to be streamed without buffering.
London is one of four cities being switched on initially for the company's engineers to begin live testing and systems integration in readiness for the customer launch.
EE said 4G will be available to its customers by Christmas in 16 cities.
The group plans to roll out the service to further towns, cities and rural areas next year, with population coverage of 70 per cent and rising to 98 per cent in 2014.
Quoted on the BBC, London Mayor Boris Johnson said: "I barely understand it, but information will spout unstoppably from these gizmos. It will bring huge advantages to anyone living or working in London."
Comments(4)
Marty1979
says...
3:06pm Tue 11 Sep 12
jimmy_mac
says...
6:00pm Tue 11 Sep 12
Marty1979 wrote:it could cause interferance with the freeveiw boxes as they work on the frequances that the old analoge tvs worked on. so it remains to be seen what happens.
I believe the interference was with the old analogue TV, as London went digital there shouldn't be a problem
DrDBexley
says...
7:54pm Tue 11 Sep 12
jimmy_mac wrote:The 4G network uses the old analogue frequencies, hence this only being able to come to UK post digital switch over.
Marty1979 wrote:it could cause interferance with the freeveiw boxes as they work on the frequances that the old analoge tvs worked on. so it remains to be seen what happens.
I believe the interference was with the old analogue TV, as London went digital there shouldn't be a problem
So, no disruption to TV, but it is possible that, without sufficient infrastructure in place, voice calls may suffer with calls dropping, not conneting etc. since the 4G network offers such massive synchronous speeds (20mbps upload and download are touted).
What isn't mentioned is that there are only 5 handsets which support 4G at the moment, and even then no one knows the cost EE will charge - with them being the only player in this market it's not exactly going to be competitively priced!!
I wouldn't expect mainstream 4G adoption for another couple of years yet since o2 and vodafone can't offer until spring 2013 when the next round of auctions are released by ofcom, then the prices need to settle and then new handsets need to be brought to market.
These handsets will then need to be developed because the battery life of current models won't be up to scratch since 4G will very likely go hand in hand with HD video streaming and other internet multi-tasking (think making 3-way video calls whilst downloading Eastenders omnibus in HD).
The biggest impact I can see from this though will be to the home broadband market, since consumers will be able to get 20mbps over the 4G network or 8mbps through their telephone line - which would you choose!!?
Exciting times as the UK finally catches up with the leading nations in terms of providing high speed internet access - just what the economy needs!
dave76 says...
1:39pm Tue 11 Sep 12