The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — this one was recorded on location in Orlando at the Gartner Symposium late last month. It’s the bleeding edge of LTE production, with a limping sound board producing a 60-cycle hum now finally diagnosed as a failing power supply.
But even with these dealbreakers buzzing like irritated bees around my head in the… → Read More
4G carrier EE, the freshly rebranded parent of Orange and T-Mobile in the U.K. which also owns and operates the U.K.’s first (and currently only) 4G/LTE network, has revealed it’s behind schedule to launch SIM-only tariffs. The SIM-only plans were supposed to be available from today but a tweet from the EE Twitter account says the plans will be delayed by up to two weeks. → Read More
Sprint today announced that it has made an arrangement with U.S. Cellular to acquire PCS spectrum and also wireless network customers for $480 million in cash, and Sprint’s taking over of “certain liabilities” on behalf of U.S. Cellular. The arrangement will help Sprint bolster its own network as it rolls out LTE nationally, the company said in a press release, helping to beef up network capacity. → Read More
The EC has decided Europe needs more 4G/LTE spectrum to run all the high speed mobile data services citizens in member states will require in the coming years. Today it’s announced a plan to refarm 120MHz of spectrum around the 2GHz band for 4G services. The decision makes it mandatory for member states to liberalise the spectrum — currently licensed for 3G services — for 4G use by June 2014. → Read More
Today EE, which owns the Orange and T-Mobile carrier brands, has flicked the switch — turning on 4G services in 11 UK cities. EE has also rebranded more than 700 Orange and T-Mobile stores as EE stores, on high streets across the country to start selling the new services to existing and new customers. → Read More
Google announced a host of new hardware today, including a new Nexus reference device for its Android mobile OS, the LG-manufactured Nexus 4. Reading through the Nexus 4′s spec list is like checking boxes on a list of what’s required for a smartphone to be competitive. Until you hit its wireless connectivity and find that LTE is missing. Google has answers for why, but none of them satisfy. → Read More
Pricing for the U.K.’s first 4G/LTE network was announced earlier this week but despite offering five consumer phone tariffs there are no unlimited data packages at all. Yet the company does offer unlimited tariffs on its 3G T-Mobile brand (on the Full Monty tariff). EE’s consumer CMO, Pippa Dunn claims unlimited data is something only a marginal “super techie” minority actually makes use of. → Read More
Apple announced a new iPad at its event on Tuesday, one that wasn’t mini, and one that wasn’t presented as a a stop-gap or mid-cycle replacement. The fourth generation iPad, as it’s called, was pitched as a full-fledged successor to the “new iPad” introduced in March 2012, which has some people frustrated. So why the change and what does it mean for Apple’s iPad upgrade cycle going forward? → Read More
After years of planning and step-by-step engineering, the U.K.’s switchover from analogue to digital-terrestrial TV broadcasts has finally been completed — marking the end of more than 70 years of analogue broadcasting in the U.K and opening the door for the launch of 4G mobile services in spectrum previously used by TV broadcasters. → Read More
U.K. carrier EE has revealed handset costs for those wanting to get a new phone when signing up for its 4G network. Prices range from free for one handset model on £41+ monthly tariffs, up to £380 for a 64GB iPhone 5 on the cheapest 4GEE 24-month tariff (£36). The 16GB iPhone 5 costs £180 on the cheapest tariff, while the Samsung Galaxy SIII 4G costs £150 on the same tariff. → Read More
Pricing for the U.K.’s first 4G/LTE network has been revealed. The new 4GEE tariffs start at £36 per month for a plan with a mere 500MB of data, and rise to £56 for an 8GB plan. The 4GEE network, a joint venture between the Orange and T-Mobile carrier brands — which merged to create the Everything Everywhere joint venture (now EE) back in 2010, is due to go live on October 30. → Read More
The rollout of multiple 4G/LTE networks in the U.K. took another step closer today with a joint statement from carriers EE, Telefónica O2, Three and Vodafone saying they formed a jointly controlled company to ensure spectrum deployed in the 800MHz band — currently used by TV broadcasters — can be cleared as speedily as possible, while also tackling any TV signal interference issues. → Read More
It’s been less than two years since Verizon first lit up its 4G LTE network, and there’s little question that it’s been growing at a quick clip. To wit, Verizon Wireless CTO Nicola Palmer at MobileCON in San Diego announced the carrier will light up its 400th LTE market (Marquette, Michigan) on October 18, well ahead of the “end of the year” timeframe the carrier previously forecasted. → Read More
Customers of U.K. carriers Orange and T-Mobile keen to sign up to the country’s first 4G LTE network (launching from EE), which will go live in ten cities on October 30, will need an LTE handset to do so. EE, the parent company of the Orange, T-Mo joint venture, has today announced it’s adding Samsung’s latest phablet phone — the Galaxy Note II LTE — to its launch line-up of 4G-ready handsets. → Read More
Via Licensing, a fully owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, today announced that ten major players in the mobile industry have banded together to join the organization’s new patent pool for standard essential LTE patents. The companies that will offer their patents for licensing through Via’s LTE pool are AT&T, Clearwire Corporation, DTVG Licensing, HP, KDDI Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, SK… → Read More
The U.K.’s first LTE network — run by EE (formerly Everything Everywhere) the parent company of the Orange and T-Mobile carriers — will go live on October 30, EE’s CEO Olaf Swantee has confirmed. The network was announced early last month — with a launch scheduled for “the coming weeks”. → Read More
The U.K.’s telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced “significant progress” has been made to speed up the delivery of high speed LTE mobile network. The timetable has been accelerated by as much as five months — enabling the launch of commercial 4G services across the country during the first half of next year. This has been made possible after an agreement was secured to speed up the process of… → Read More
Japan’s third largest carrier, Softbank, is to acquire fourth-placed carrier eAccess in a share swap deal valued at just under ¥200 billion ($2.6 billion), Reuters is reporting (original story at the Nikkei business daily). → Read More
Intel’s second bite at the smartphone market has been more akin to a gentle nibbling around the edges. At the end of last year the chipmaker teased a smartphone reference design running its new Medfield x86 chip. Nine months Intel chips have found their way inside six smartphones, yet none apparently destined for the U.S. → Read More
With all the new features in the iPhone 5, there have been a couple of standout omissions. Reuters, WSJ and others on Friday published articles about how last week’s iPhone 5 launch has put Europe in the slow lane and created winners and losers. Their reason: the device will not support LTE on the 2.6GHz and 800MHz bands, frequencies being most commonly used in Europe for 4G. Similarly, Apple’s… → Read More
Today Everything Everywhere, the JV between Orange and T-Mobile UK, unveiled some more details about its new 4G network — the first commercial LTE service for the UK market. It is going to be branded EE — a shorter name for a “faster” brand — it will be launched by Christmas, and will initially cover 20 million people, or 30% of the population of the country, with the aim for that to extend to… → Read More
At the upcoming Apple event on September 12, the company is expected to release a new iPhone compatible with 4G LTE connectivity around the world. Yet, competitors such as Samsung and HTC are already warning Apple that if it releases a new iPhone with LTE connectivity, they will sue the company for patent infringements and will demand a sales ban in the U.S.
When it comes to 4G LTE… → Read More
Sprint is making solid headway with its new LTE network — it’s already live in 15 (mostly Texan markets) with another four slated to light up before Labor Day rolls around and the carrier aims to have 12,000 LTE sites online by the end of the year.
Sure, the process has been held up at least partially thanks to some damn birds, but now it seems another region should officially get the LTE nod… → Read More
Sprint seems to be taking the slow and steady approach to their LTE light-up, but it turns out that’s not entirely by design. When asked about how confident the carrier was about meeting its goal of 12,000 live LTE sites by the end of the year, Sprint Networks Operations President Steve Elfman pointed out a particularly peculiar stumbling block.
“We’ve got several hundred sites that are done… → Read More
It’s been a very long time coming, but the UK regulator Ofcom has finally revealed plans for the auction of 4G spectrum, which means that by late next year the UK may, finally, start to see a commercial rollout of 4G services like LTE. Bidding in the auction, for spectrum in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands, is likely to start in early 2013. It will be the largest-ever spectrum auction in the… → Read More
There’s an argument to be made that Samsung’s Galaxy S III is the best Android phone on the market today, but that doesn’t mean that its formula can’t be improved upon.
Case in point: now the Galaxy S III has wormed its way around the globe, Samsung is preparing to launch a version of its flagship handset that outshines the both the international and U.S. models, thanks to some craftily… → Read More
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been planning to kill off the carrier’s aging iDEN network since 2010, but now Sprint has finally delivered a date for iDEN’s demise. The carrier has just announced that they plan to pull the plug on their iDEN network as soon as June 30, 2013.
Thankfully, from the ashes of the company’s near-dead 2G network will rise enhanced 3G service and Sprint’s new 4G LTE… → Read More
By now, we’re pretty familiar with the term 4G LTE. But that in and of itself is somewhat surprising. It took 12 years for GSM wireless technology to reach one billion connections, and WCDMA took 11 years. But LTE will hit the same mark in just seven years of existence, according to a new report by Strategy Analytics.
If you’re not familiar with the term, a brief explanation would be that… → Read More
There’s been more than a little bit of Verizon news making the rounds today, and on the surface, it all seems like good stuff. Verizon will cover 200 more markets with LTE by the end of the year? Awesome! The next iPhone Verizon carries will probably have LTE? Not exactly a huge leap there, considering a LTE-packing iPad will hit Verizon shelves this Friday, but what the hell — I’m… → Read More
It seems like everyone and their mother are looking to roll out their own LTE networks these days: Verizon and AT&T continue to build theirs out, Sprint is busy laying the groundwork (possibly without LightSquared’s help), and MetroPCS and U.S. Cellular are offering LTE on a more local scale.
Now an even smaller operator is looking to join the fray — C Spire Wireless (formerly known as… → Read More
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