The Tech City high tech cluster in London’s East End is getting an extra helping of high speed mobile connectivity from June. Carrier EE, which owns and operates the U.K.’s first and still only LTE/4G network, has announced it is partnering with the Tech City Investment Organisation to install a network of 4G hotspots in “key locations” for businesses in the area to use. → Read More
EE, the U.K.’s first and still only 4G network operator, has broken out 4G-specific customer numbers for the first time — confirming that after five months of 4G trading it has hit a total of 318,000 4G-specific customers. The carrier has previously reported total postpaid 3G and 4G additions for its Q4 quarter, when it said it saw 201,000 net gains in the quarter. → Read More
EE, currently the only mobile carrier offering 4G LTE services in the UK, plans to double the speed of its mobile data network in the country’s 10 biggest cities to 130 megabits per second, as it braces itself for competition from other carriers that are scrambling to get their own LTE networks up and running. In a presentation this morning in London, Olaf Swantee, EE’s CEO, also says that the… → Read More
The first — and still, the only — 4G network in the U.K. is now available to half the U.K.’s homes and businesses. Carrier EE said today it has switched on the network in 13 more towns and cities to hit the 50% population coverage mark five months after the network went live. The company has previously said its network rollout would reach 55% of the population by June. → Read More
T-Mobile has announced its first LTE coverage areas today, with a network that launches in seven cities today, including Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose and Washington DC. The company said that its network should reach 100 million potential subscribers in the U.S. by the middle of this year, and also is expected to reach 200 million by the end of 2013. → Read More
More developments on the grim story of ST-Ericsson, the unprofitable JV between Ericsson and STMicroelectronics that tried to kickstart a semiconductor business in Europe. Failing to find a buyer for the full operation, they will commence splitting up the assets instead, laying off 1,600 employees in the process. → Read More
Via Licensing Corporation today announced that China Mobile and Deutsche Telekom joined the company’s LTE patent pool for standards-essential patents. The two telecom giants join AT&T, Clearwire Corporation, DTVG Licensing, HP, KDDI Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, and ZTE Corporation in this pool that launched last October. Give the vagaries of the patent… → Read More
Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has just announced the winners of the UK spectrum auctions for 4G spectrum on the low-frequency 800MHz band, used for LTE and other mobile broadband services. The list is an attempt at playing fair: it includes fixed line incumbent BT; major mobile carriers Vodafone, Telefonica/O2, and EE; as well as smaller mobile upstart Three. → Read More
Being first to 4G may not be quite the advantage EE may have hoped. The U.K.’s first 4G network was up and running at the end of October last year but its Q4 results show the network it picked up only 201,000 total postpaid mobile customers in the quarter — down from 250,000 net adds in Q3, and 313,000 in the year ago quarter. So however many 4G sign ups it’s had it’s not spectacular. → Read More
4GEE, the U.K.’s first — and still its only — 4G network, owned by carrier EE, is continuing to grow its coverage footprint. Currently the network reaches less than half (45 per cent) of the U.K.’s population but by the summer EE will have built it out to cover a majority (55 per cent) of the U.K.’s people. The carrier said today it would be switching on a further 27 towns and cities by June. → Read More
It keeps getting worse for French iPhone owners. The agency for telecommunications ARCEP has just announced that it would meet with the four French telcos to know if and when it should refarm Bouygues Telecom’s 1,800MHz band to bring LTE to the iPhone 5. The three other companies are begging the ARCEP to wait until at least 2014 to start this process, effectively lobbying for slowing down… → Read More
The U.K.’s smallest mobile network operator, Three, has committed to offering 4G/LTE technology at the same price as 3G — i.e. with no upgrade fee — when it’s able to add 4G to its network later this year. Three has not specified when that will happen but it’s not likely before September. Three’s premium-less price commitment contrasts with rival EE. → Read More
4GEE, the U.K.’s first and still it’s only 4G/LTE network just got a little larger. Carrier EE has switched on 4G services in nine more towns, bringing the total number of towns and cities connected to the service to 27 in the 90 days since it launched the network. The network now reaches around 45 per cent of the U.K. population, according to EE — which says the rollout is ahead of schedule. → Read More
AT&T has announced a deal with Verizon Wireless that will allow the company to continue to build out its 4G LTE network in the U.S., through the acquisition of 700 MHz spectrum from Verizon Wireless. The 700 MHz band was originally used to broadcast analog TV channels, but the transition to digital TV made them available for auction in 2008. Verizon won Block A during that auction, along with… → Read More
It’s taken a long time for the U.K. telecoms regulator to be in a position to fire the starting gun on the auction for 4G-suitable spectrum but bidding to acquire the up to 250 MHz of additional mobile spectrum in the 800Mhz and 2.6GHz frequencies has now got underway. The total reserve price for the spectrum has been set at £1.36 billion. → Read More
iPhone-maker Apple’s share of the smartphone market will peak this year — at just over a fifth (22 per cent) of the global market, says analyst ABI Research. Apple’s share will then remain flat through to 2018 as mobile maker Samsung continues to dominate. ABI notes that Samsung has grown its share of the global smartphone market from eight per cent to more than 30 per cent in 2012. → Read More
Earlier this week European Commissioner Neelie Kroes spoke in platitudes about how the EU would be putting more effort into kick-starting the region’s hardware industry — to create the ‘Airbus of chips.’ Her words seem particularly ironic (and possibly more empty) today, as the world’s largest telecoms company, Ericsson, admitted it would have to take a writedown of $1.2 billion (8 billion… → Read More
We are far from global ubiquity for LTE and other 4G networks, but carriers in markets that have implemented the faster mobile data standard are seeing a boom in growth. Figures out today from Strategy Analytics predict that shipments of LTE devices will hit 275 million units in 2013, a three-fold rise from the 90.9 million that have been shipped this year. And while a lot of this is being driven… → Read More
EE, the carrier behind the U.K.’s first 4G network, 4GEE, has announced its rollout will expand to 17 more towns by March 2013. It will also increase the network density in metropolitan areas already covered by its 4G rollout. In tandem it’s upgrading its 3G network to fastest variant DC-HSPA and upping the capacity of its mobile backhaul to Gigabit Ethernet. → Read More
Fragmentation in the Android ecosystem can be a nightmare for developers – but despite all the variations between devices and operating system versions, it can remain a struggle for handset makers to produce smartphones that look distinctive from the rest of the pack. Now an enterprising Russian hardware maker is hoping its newest creation will be original and appealing enough to make some… → Read More
The U.K.’s 4G auction process has kicked off, with bidders having until 16:00 GMT today to submit their bids, along with a £100,000 deposit. The window for bidders to submit opened at 10:00 GMT this morning. The spectrum going under the hammer sits in the 800MHZ and 2.6GHz bands — and has been deemed suitable for 4G/LTE services. → Read More
T-Mobile is often in the business of explaining to its customers why it doesn’t offer the iPhone, but today the company said via a release on its financials that it will actually be working with Apple to “bring products to market together in 2013″ through an agreement with the iPhone maker. T-Mobile CEO Rene Obermann also confirmed the news in an analyst press conference. → Read More
Apple wants to ensure that customer experience with its iPhone 5 lives up to what the company is promising, and it will take strong measures to do so, including telling carriers when they can and can’t make the phone’s LTE capabilities available to subscribers. Generally speaking, carriers test to ensure devices meet their own network standards, but Apple seems to be in a strong enough position to… → Read More
The U.K.’s first — and currently only — 4G network, run by carrier EE, has announced it is increasing the size of the data caps on some of its mobile broadband tariffs by around 60 percent, while keeping its pricing structure the same. The network has faced criticism for offering relatively small monthly data caps for a high-speed network. → Read More
Last Friday, I told you how to get your Nexus 4 working on LTE networks in Canada. All through this past weekend and today, I’ve been using that device as my primary phone on the LTE band the entire time. And despite some definite reduction in battery life, I couldn’t be happier with the Nexus 4 now that it’s playing nice with Rogers’ LTE network. → Read More
Reports surfaced this morning that the Nexus 4, Google’s latest flagship Android smartphone, supports LTE via a relatively easy software hack. After testing, it turns out that’s definitely true, so I’ll show you exactly how to enable it on your device. Fair warning: the Nexus 4 only supports LTE on the AWS band (1700 or 2100MHz), which is currently used for LTE networks in Canada and on T-Mobile. → Read More
Google’s Nexus 4 smartphones have been selling like hotcakes, despite one big criticism being that the device does not support super-fast wireless broadband on LTE networks. But a video has emerged that apparently refutes that fact: You can turn on LTE on the device, by way of a simple shortcode that you enter on the dial pad. → Read More
EE, the U.K.’s first 4G network carrier, has quietly launched SIM-only plans. The tariffs, which allow people who already own a 4G handset to use EE’s network without having to sign up to a two-year contract that includes the cost of a handset, were originally scheduled for launch earlier this month but were delayed by around two weeks — owing to testing processes “over-running”. → Read More
Some buyers of Apple’s 4th generation iPad with LTE are receiving notices that their shipments will arrive by November 16, otherwise known as this coming Friday. The latest iPad had originally been announced with an anticipated shipping date of mid-November, which would mean Apple is making good on its promises with shipping coming soon. The iPad mini’s delivery date remains a little further out. → Read More
The rules for the U.K.’s forthcoming 4G auction have been published by telecoms regulator Ofcom. The reserve price for the two swathes of spectrum going under the hammer (800MHz, 2.6GHz) has been set at a relatively modest £1.3 billion — modest when you consider the U.K.’s 3G auction raised a staggering £22.5 billion back in 2000. 4G is expected to raise a lot less than 3G. → Read More
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