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You’ve probably heard of 4G, but also (probably) haven’t used it yet. It’s an umbrella term covering various faster mobile data connection standards, which are gradually taking off in various parts of the world.
The US is rapidly adopting it, with all manner of special-edition smartphones arriving in 4G, WiMAX and LTE branded editions to take advantage of the demand for faster mobile web connections.
As with digital and HDTV, you won’t just automatically “get” 4G on your existing phone or mobile broadband connection when it’s launched. You’ll need a new plaything. 4G needs new hardware just like 3G did when it arrived here in 2003, plus the mobile networks need to install new equipment at their end, too.
In some countries, advanced versions of 3G, like HSPA+, are often labelled “4G” due to simply being a bit faster than 3G (and because it sounds cool to say “these are 4G.”) What O2 is trialling here is the Long Term Evolution (LTE) option, which is the proper next-generation mobile network we can expect to see replace the 3G network a few years from now.
There’s been quite some controversy over the use of the actual term “4G” over the years. The International Telecommunication Union, which sets the standards, originally decided that a proper 4G network should be able to download at speeds of 100Mbps when mobile, and 1Gbps through a static connection, but it’s subsequently been downgraded to let the term cover next-gen networks that are near enough. Like the LTE system.
The core boasts of LTE are higher data speeds and increased throughput, allowing more people to use the system simultaneously and benefit from reliable download speeds.
On average, users can expect to see speeds around ten times faster than are currently managed through a 3G connection, with O2 saying users of the London trial may experience download speeds of up to 150 megabits per second in dreamy conditions.
As with our 3G connections which are extremely unlikely to ever hit their 7.2Mbps theoretical maximum speeds, load on the 4G network will reduce that to a realistic 10 – 15Mbps once it’s live, and depending on how the backhaul copes with demand.
Backhaul is a nerdy telecoms term describing how the masts connect to the actual fun part of the network we know as the internet. Cambridge Broadband Networks is one of the partners providing technology for use in O2′s London trial, taking on the job of providing the backhaul with its VectaStar Multipoint Microwave system.
It uses the point-to-multipoint system to link several simple base stations with one more powerful hub that handles the link to the actual internet backbone.
For the O2 trial, O2 positioned one hub on a high spot, which provides the general link to the web for the geographical area. Smaller local base stations link to this, wirelessly. According to Cambridge Broadband Networks, this makes the network much easier to manage and quicker to enhance, as the smaller, local base stations can be up and running within “hours”.
As with the 3G network, your connection speed will be dependent on how far you are from the individual masts, the make-up of the building you’re in and how many other users are online.
It’s the “ping” that’ll make the most difference to how 4G feels on your phone or laptop. Ping is the network latency, or the delay between your device asking for data and the network responding with your web page, and it’s the critical part of the machine in making online gaming possible, and web browsing and VOIP services more responsive.
The 4G network will massively reduce this ping, taking typical overall data response times down from over a second to well under a tenth of a second, which ought to help mobile web-browsing sessions near the speeds and multi-tab madness levels of wired desktop connections.
Well, very soon if you get in on O2′s London trial. But for the rest of the country, Ofcom is still messing about with plans to auction off the parts of the radio spectrum 4G will use, so it’s going to be at least 2013 or even 2014 before it launches nationally.
The 4G switch-on will coincide with the analogue TV switch-off, as parts of the spectrum used by the UK’s 4G network — the 800MHz and 2.6GHz frequencies — are currently used to beam Coronation Street into the homes of those still defiantly watching analogue television.
Tomorrow, we’ll take you through the ins and outs of the UK’s current 4G landscape, taking in all the gossip from the impending auction and detailing what you can expect once it launches properly.
Image credit: Péter Gudella / Shutterstock
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Good to see O2 trialing the service but I expect it will take a couple of years to roll out to general public… The spectrum auction is so inflated here – operators need a long time to recoup their costs. This is probably why UK has very limited costly data plans on 3g now since they overspent on the 3g auction.
I am more interested in White Spaces spectrum and can already see myself installing a transmitter with a big-ass antenna to get my own wireless broadband across a 100 mile radius
Spectrum auction is so inflated here? Really? In fact for once we should be happy with how things are in the UK! Wireless spectrum regulators in most countries attempt to auction off chunks of their spectrum for as much money as possible, however as documented in the Undercover Economist, Australia and the US screwed up their auction design and ended up getting relatively little, whereas the UK and Germany got it right and forced the companies to pay prices which reflected what the spectrum was worth to them.
Why does this matter? Radio spectrum is obviously a limited resource and, without regulation, indiscriminate use will make it useless (think pirate radio stations blocking legitimate stations). So if we’re going to have regulation we’re going to end up giving companies, eg. telecoms companies, exclusive use of a sections of the spectrum. Now surely, seeing as the wireless spectrum is a ‘natural’ resource which is freely available, it essentially belongs to us all (ie. ‘the country’), so if we’re going to give some of it to a company to exploit for their gain then we should be paid for it (in a similar way as a mine owner must buy for the land for his mine). Furthermore it is logical to ensure the country (embodied in the government as the administrator of this process) should endeavour to get a fair price for the resource which is being sold? As the more that is paid, the more money in the public purse, which comes back to us all in state services. Otherwise what you’re saying is that we should give it away cheaply to aid the profit of a company at the expense of the rest of us…
The idea that the UK auction has lead to our expensive data plans is easily falsifiable. Data is, if anything, more expensive in the States, and they cocked up their auction so the networks got bandwidth relatively cheaply – the networks didn’t pass the saving on!
You are mixing two things here in your response – one is regulation of the spectrum and another is the auction price. And no, I am not happy about how things are in the UK. UK 3G auction was the most expensive in the world (about 10 times higher a pop than in the US). What you probably didn’t get is this was another way for the government to tax us and not the operators. With £4-5bn debt each after the auctions, the costs had to be passed down to customers. Such a huge debt also hurt operators’ share prices and their ability to borrow so the final cost of 3G licences in the UK is much much higher than just the price of the licence. 3G rollout was very slow and is still very patchy and we won’t see a global rollout of 4G for another few years. 3UK only broke even on their investment last year. Operators are not ready to rollout full scale 4G because the cost of the last auction still hurts. Just look at US where 4G is already real.
Let the government regulate the airwaves, but make the spectrum free. The customers will then reap the benefits in the long run and there will be more money for innovation and competition. The prices would by definition be much lower because we have enough networks to create a healthy competition.
And by the way, pirate radio is not pirate anymore if the airwaves are not regulated, right?
Thank you for this article, very informative. Looking forward for tomorrow’s article too.
*cough* http://everythingeverywhere.com/2011/10/07/everything-everywhere-and-bt-wholesale-kick-off-4g-live-trial/ *cough*
Think you’ll find that Cornwall had it first, actually Newquay to be precise. A trial between EE and BT. Would have been nice to see some coverage of this as well, the world/UK doesn’t revolve around London after all
That’s a nasty cough you have there. Giz has covered the Cornish trial but obviously they don’t have anyone in Corwall to report on it. They did have this one guy and his brother in law lined up, but when they turned out to be the same person it all sort of fell through.
What are you saying? :-O Pretty nasty stereotype you have in there
*cough*http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2011/11/o2s-testing-londons-first-4g-lte-network-and-giz-uk-readers-can-help/*cough*
Missed this earlier article did you? There were links aplenty in the above article… Which explains why there is a 4G article now.
In Giz UK’s defence, this is probably the first chance they have had for a 4G article, only newly coming into their own from under big brother US Giz’s umbrella, who had covered it quite a few times before now.
*cough* yes *cough*.
I’ll go hide back in my cupboard now
Make sure it is dust free and well ventilated. We’d like to have you back to play sometime, and you can’t do that if you’re laid up with a hacking cough!
But not TOO well ventilated, don’t want you catching a chill on top of that cough.
4G? I’d be happy to get EDGE. On the plus side you don’t need much of a data allowance on 2G, I’m not even sure it’s possible to use mine within a month at those speeds
I now know what you mean. Had to drive from London to Hull & back this weekend and only had the old washing machine reception on the iphone the entire length of the country…this is unheard of in London!
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m tired of the spectrum auction delays. It seems like we’re lagging behind the rest of the world just because of silly politics.
It makes me sick to the stomach how this 4G roll out has got delayed. The government needs to act now. Considering that they want to stimulate a dead economy then this is the closest thing we have to a magic bullet – jobs created upgrading all networks, mass sales of new 4 core 4G handsets in 2012, Olympic global 4G programme subscription, new services and business from new fast technologies – then everyone got quad core computers in their arse pockets with 4G connections then I call that the greatest technology revolution that the world will ever bared witness to.
Just two things the government needs to do, firstly give ofcom some big motherf*cking teeth, ensuring every carrier gives customers the best service to the fairest terms at the most affordable cost, or face a nominal fine per affected customer.
Second thing is give the 4G network away yesterday, screw selling it for billions for a quick fix, that means we profit now but get screwed at high mobile costs for the next ten years. Just split it out fairly to each carrier based on clients – and monitor that closely.
Fact is the government doesn’t want growth yet, the people in the markets can make as much money on a declining market as they can on growing market, it just needs to be going in a steady direction, up or down – fluctuation is bad. We, the people, don’t make on a declining market, some do, police, debt collectors, but on the whole we suffer. I don’t want to say that I believe a government would use policy to actively harm the majority of its people, but it would appear that their actions so far show nothing else to be true, other than gross incompetence.
Firstly, and I hope you don’t take this personally, but that is just idiotic. Of course the govt want growth – it is the only thing that will enable the deficit reduction programmes in the UK (an all western economies) to work. The ‘people in the markets’ as you put it make money irrespective of whether the economy remains up, down or fluctuates, and often make more money during those times because by its very nature markets need to fluctuate – there is no such thing as continuous growth irrespective of what some politicians may claim, boom has to be followed by bust – the key to a good economy is managing them and limiting the booms to limit the busts – and even during these times of up and down, markets have daily fluctuations.
Secondly the ‘people in the markets’ are the exact people who are currently keeping this economy, and indeed the global economy afloat. Did they cause some of the current problems, yes, did they cause all of them, certainly not. Where axactly do you think the money comes from to run the country? Over the last few years, even over the last few decades, taxes can not and have not constituted the entire government spending – they therefore need to sell bonds etc to raise immediate capital which is then paid back, often by the taxes – and it is the ‘people in the markets’ who buy these bonds and thus support the economy – especially when you look at the past 15 years and the finance sector have equalled no less than 25% of the UK’s growth throughout that period. The structural deficit situation which is what has required the need to implement current policies (as this govt see it) has not been caused by the banks – they money used to ‘bail-out’ the UK banking system is not generally considered in analysis of the UK situation. The biggest problem is access to credit which, given that the ease of access to credit is the very thing that lead to the recent recession and the hatred of the banks, I would hardly blame the banks for – they are bashed because they gave credit too easily, now they are bashed because they have tighened up too much even though it was all within the regulations laid down by this and other countries!?!?!
But enough politics/economics – as for the 4G – part of the reason they are trialling this is because whilst the belief is that LTE is likely to be the way forward, they have to ensure that it will work in the UK and thus need to test how to best form the network. Otherwise Ofcom will sell off or give off something that has no intrinsic value. Even if they give it away, the companies still need to understand the merits of the system in the UK in order to raise capital to invest in new networks. In addition to that, the discussions in the US with AT&T and Japan with DoCoMo looking at advanced LTE may actually mean that it would actually be better waiting until 2013 when A-LTE is more developed and potentially throw that in the mix – as well as the phone technology has caught up and will allow more effecient battery/LTE combo.
In addition to that you still have the 4G bandwidth being used for terrestrial TV as mentioned in the article. Most people may now be on digital but they cannot realistically just turn it off when they have already published their terrestrial turn-off plan. Of course they could just flick the switch but there would be so many issues from the media and the public, as well as all those who currently have not been able to move to digital – or those who cannot yet receive digital. It is wholly impractical given that the current plans were set approx. 5-6 years ago.
I do, however, whole-heartedly agree with your view that Ofcom needs some real powers to ensure networks do the best for their customers both in terms of network service and customer service.
You may disagree, I wouldn’t also want to except that. But this is one big issue amongst many wider issues of failing to supply stimulus quickly and effectively. If a government continues to drop the ball then I must conclude that these educated city men, running my country, are doing this purposely while a bunch of old boys are on the make, that or gross incompetence.
I care if a bank does business in or out of London, I don’t care who owns it nor if it fails or not, and gets sold to a Chinese company, makes no odds to me, serious odds to Cameron and his mates. Putting billions in the banks helps nobody, not even a failing bank, put your money in people.
Yet I personal don’t blame the banks for what is happening, it is something that is a result of political greed, and personal greed from the bulk of the people.
But to say you can’t have boom without bust is right, the problem is I ain’t asking for that. I want consistent and steady, I think most of us want that, and could have that – boom and bust is an interesting method, but you can keep it. Give me steady and slow.
The timeline for the digital switch over is silly, it is ease to now say six weeks and it is dead, get use to it. As the future of every person in this country is more important than a few people that have non-digital viewing, their interests are of little concern to anyone in these times – screw em.
We can listen to a government blame things on legacy till the end of time, or enforce they start doing something about it. Ever way times are hard, and going to get harder, but I care more about what direction I am going rather than where I am right now – but I don’t see any movement in any direction but down regarding current policy and leadership. Remember that this country didn’t fail, the world global markets failed, yet we are more interested in positioning ourselves in that failing market than positioning ourselves for coming out of that.
Well I’m not sure if anyone in the UK has put billions into banks, this government certainly hasn’t. You also complain about blame on legacy, this also irritates me no-end, however, given that legacy restricts current actions, and the counter-claims of ‘it was all rosy when we left’ from the opposition, I am not surprised at the political posturing.
And as for not caring whether banks do things in London or not should matter because like it or not, ths country has become more reliant on the finance sector than most other developed economies. If they go we don’t have anything to backfill, yet. This govt is investing in manufacturing (certianly moreso then the last few years) – just look at the strides Jaguar Land Rover are making in expanding manufacturing in the UK over the last few months.
And as for investing in the people – how exactly do you do that without burdening the people more. If they tax less granted the people will have more money, but the govt will have less and thus can spend less. If they increase spending, the people will have more money but will be taxed more to compensate for the higher spending.
Personally I think the answer is to give me the power and I’ll sort things out. I’ll start of with just the UK for the moment, the world domination will come at a later.
And then I could decree the implementation of 4G and digital tv for all.
Or another idea. The government should just disband, privatise every public sector and cancel all taxes and regulations. Let the free market sort things out. It is more competent than the government anyway. We’d have 4G long time ago in a free market. And more money to spend would be a plus.