O2 will switch on the first 4G, Long Term Evolution (LTE), network in London today. It will offer hundreds of consumers, businesses and venue owners a peek into the superfast mobile broadband future. The trial will run for the next nine months to explore the technology before national introduction.
This trail will witness over 25 4G sites going live across London in October, covering a combined area of 40 sq km from Hyde Park to The O2 in Greenwich, starting now until summer 2012. The areas it will cover include Canary Wharf, Soho, Westminster, South Bank and Kings Cross.
O2 will reportedly provide a mobile internet experience, which would be comparable to the fastest landline fibre home broadband connections. Services provided would include high speed corporate LAN access, high-definition film and music streaming, mobile online gaming and high-speed access to social networks.
This network is said to reduce the time to download a 500MB file to under a minute as compared to over 5 minutes on 3G.
Telefónica UK (O2) CEO Ronan Dunne said today’s launch of the UK’s first 4G London trial network demonstrates their commitment to delivering 4G to their customers at the earliest opportunity.
O2 will provide trialists with Samsung B3730 mobile broadband dongles, support speeds of up to 100Mbps. Of the 1,000 individuals expected to take part include retailer John Lewis, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, O2 Lounge and O2 Store, which will provide 4G live music video and film streaming demonstrations, Gizmodo UK, among others.
Real-time network performance data and feedback from customers would be collected throughout the trial in order to be used by O2, while planning for its commercial implementation of the 4G network after Ofcom’s 4G spectrum auction, expected to take place in 2012.
The O2 4G trial will use the 2.6GHz spectrum band under a Test and Development licence granted to O2 by OFCOM. It would support the maximum 20MHz RF bandwidth for LTE, which allows 4G speeds of up to 150Mbps.
Dunne said, "Our work in London will give us a better understanding of the capabilities of 4G technology and will allow us to explore the superfast benefits it will bring to people and industry across the UK."
