UK Delays 4G Until 2011
The UK government has admitted that the auction for 4G frequencies is unlikely to happen before 2011.
The auction was originally scheduled to take place in 2008 but was delayed by legal challenges from UK mobile phone companies T-Mobile and O2.
The legal challenges revolve around which frequencies bands can be used for 3G and 2G phones services after 4G is introduced.
T-Mobile Adds Voice to 4G Phones
Deutsche Telekom, known outside Germany as T-Mobile, have announced the first voice call using 4G LTE technology.
While other mobile operators have gone down a purely IP based technology – where voice calls are sent using VOIP (think Skype) – T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom has been working on something it calls VoLGA (Voice over LTE via Generic Access).
It claims the system is a cheaper solution that needs little in the way of hardware upgrades. A spokesperson said, “The VoLGA test shows how operators could quickly and easily provide next generation voice services, re-using their existing core networks.”
UK 4G Coming
UK mobile phone operator O2 is expecting have a test 4G mobile network running by the summer of 2010.
The parent company of O2, Telefonica, has already announced 4G tests for the UK and five other countries of the next generation of mobile broadband technology.
The LTE trials will be the first carried out by any UK mobile phone operator – although Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone have said they intend to roll out 4G networks in the future.
T-Mobile 4G?
Bloomberg is reporting that T-Mobile USA could be about to hire a slice of 4G phone network from Clearwire.
If true, the move would allow T-Mobile to play a quick game of catch up with the other US 4G mobile networks.
The same report says the parent company of T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, is also talking to MetroPCS about a similar plan.
T-Mobile Tests 4G
Mobile phone operator T-Mobile is claiming to have setup the world’s first multi-user 4G / LTE test network in Innsbruck, Austria.
The test network, thought to be the largest in Europe, uses sixty cell phone towers and has been running since July. The company is using its existing 3G phone service as the technical base for the tests.
T-Mobile is trialling the 4G phone service to put the technology through its paces and to gain user feedback.
Austria has one of the highest rates of mobile data usage in Europe. One third of revenue generated by Mobilkom Austria – the Austrian market leader – comes from mobile broadband services.
