You have probably heard a lot about the perks of having 4G on your mobile. But what does this actually mean? Broadbandwatcher explains.
What is 4G?
This term stands for Fourth Generation. It is based on advanced technologies which allow the consumer to have access to a superfast internet connection on the go. The most widely used mobile broadband technology in the UK currently is 3G as the fourth generation network is still in its infancy.
4G download speeds
4G can theoretically supply you with speeds of anything between 21Mbps to 1Gbps. To…
Edita Lozovska - 18 March 2013 | comments. Read more
4G from EE has been live for just over a month now and EE said this morning that its 4G customers are seeing speeds up to five times faster than 3G speeds.
Mark Overton, the firm’s vice president of wholesale, said:
“We’ve been live in market for just over a month now and are seeing reliable 6-8Mbps speeds, and I think anyone using 3G would agree that’s faster.
“And we are seeing significant customer uplift on speed on that data access.
“Sometimes we are seeing speeds of up to 30Mbps although that’s usually…
Helen Christie - 7 December 2012 | comments. Read more
Ofcom has set a reserve price of £1.3bn for the auction of 4G mobile spectrum.
The telecoms watchdog has released a timeline of events leading up to the highly anticipated launches of the 4G services in May and June next year. Bidding will take place in January, with licences being granted in February and March.
The bidding will be held over secure internet connections and Ofcom claim that this stage could take “a number of weeks”.
Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards was quoted as saying:
“The entire industry is now focused on the…
Edita Lozovska - 12 November 2012 | comments. Read more
You may come sooner, 4GEE, but our user experience will be better, said Vodafone.
As a quick reminder, EE’s fourth generation services are to be officially launched as soon as tomorrow, the 30th of October. As a part of the plan, you might have noticed a number of retail outlets (i.e. T-Mobile or Orange shops) already being rebranded to EE.
Meanwhile, Vodafone commented that because it is going to make use of the 800MHz band (EE intends to use the 1800MHz frequency), it is highly likely that the former’s in-door service…
Edita Lozovska - 29 October 2012 | comments. Read more
Good times have come to Orange’s fixed line broadband service – you might remember the subscriber base being at a standstill for two quarters in a row, followed by a rather slow growth of +1,000 which is better than no news, however nothing extraordinary to write home about.
Yet Q3 of 2012 has changed all that by bringing +9,000 newbies to the fixed line broadband side of the business. Not to mention, the glorious times that 4G services are to bring to the operator – lest we forget that Orange…
Edita Lozovska - 24 October 2012 | comments. Read more
Excited to get 4G? Who wouldn’t be? Now the time has come to find out how much does it cost. Yes friends, EE (T-Mobile and Orange) has revealed the pricing for its fourth generation mobile broadband offers.
Under a specific branding 4GEE, the services will start from £30 and £36 for business clients (SME – small to medium enterprises, larger companies will pay an additional £3 on top) and consumers respectively.
For £30 SMEs can expect services such as 1GB of data per month, 1,000 minutes and 1,000 texts per month….
Edita Lozovska - 23 October 2012 | comments. Read more
It’s official, everyone. 4G has now landed in Reading, Swindon and Southwark.
A word of caution though, to access the network, users are required to have special 4G-capable devices, such as dongles or smartphones which should be able to catch and read the signals. Users can’t use 4G without these.
According to UK Broadband’s CEO, Nicholas James, 4G was just like the doctor ordered for businesses and generally for the economy:
“Being always connected is now an essential requirement in today’s business and increasingly cloud-based world. It can be extremely damaging if…
Edita Lozovska - 8 October 2012 | comments. Read more
While consumers may be excited about 4G services coming to the UK (Ofcom gave Everything Everywhere the go-ahead to make use of its 1,800MHz spectrum to rollout the next-gen mobile broadband), this happiness might be short-lived.
In order to make use of the 4G portable broadband, customers need to have compatible devices – tablets or smartphones – to be able to enjoy speedy internet.
Informa’s Telecoms and Media head analyst, Thomas Wehmeier, was quoted by PCPro.co.uk as stating:
“There are various frequencies being used around the world and a phone that works…
Edita Lozovska - 23 August 2012 | comments. Read more
Some of you might remember that Everything Everywhere (T-Mobile and Orange) has been very keen on 4G services, seeing as it reported on the progress of its fourth gen mobile broadband trial in a small Cumbrian community of Threlkeld.
Only a fraction (50) of households and businesses took part in the LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology based trial which reported back reaching speeds of 20Mbps. It is worth saying that EE is yet to report whether or not that figure is a maximum speed or an average.
The hardware premises used…
Geoff Slaughter - 27 June 2012 | comments. Read more
4G networks could be coming to the UK soon if a campaign by mobile carrier Everything Everywhere is successful. The firm, which was formed from a merger of T-Mobile and Orange, is urging consumers to join the ‘4G Britain’ campaign to force the government to speed up the introduction of the super-fast service. With handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S3 now sporting quad core processors under the hood it seems fitting that network speeds are finally catching up on smartphone performance.
Operators have been fighting over the distribution of…
Newsman - 12 June 2012 | comments. Read more
