Mobile, LTE and the UK network bottleneck

November 30th, 2010 by Tim Greenhalgh

LTE – three initials that give UK mobile enthusiasts a “desire-on”. We want this more than we want secure mobile shopping, more than next-gen Tablets and more than Wi-Max.
The exotically-named answer to our fast mobile needs, Long Term Evolution (LTE), is a mobile standard that promises to provide downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbit/s and an uplink of at least 50 Mbit/s with round-trip times of less than 10 ms.
Excuse me while I have a “desire moment”.
If the UK mobile network operators can deliver this, it’s a problem solved. Actually, it’s a number of problems solved and means the delivery of the network that finally enables people to connect, engage and build new forms of fluid online communication.
The beauty of LTE is that it supports scalable carrier bandwidths, from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz and supports both frequency division duplexing (FDD) and time division duplexing (TDD). (ThanksWikipedia – don’t forget to donate).
But here’s the news less good. We won’t have LTE for the next five years, minimum. John Kennedy outlines the reasons in a precise and excellent article on Silicon Republic. It’s required reading for all UK mobilists.
I think John boosts the debate and shows that consumer demand can push the UK operators’ schedule forward much more quickly. The economic reasoning currently used by Vodafone, O2, Orange, 3, T-Mobile and the virtual network operators in the UK is that LTE is, well, just too expensive.
The mobile network operators have a history of under-estimating the needs of their customers. Good to see consistency in their planning.

I think the networks will be overwhelmed by the data demands of their customers in the next year. They already work overtime to transfer the data load to any wi-fi network that can take the strain.

We need LTE here, right now. The mobile operators need it sooner.
While they dither and dodge, we can make a difference by pushing on all the sensitive pressure points to ensure that we, finally, have the mobile network we deserve.

Yep. Definitely a habit. You want positive? Ray provides:

      

Tags: LTE, mobile, O2, T-Mobile, virtual mobile network operators, Vodafone, Wikipedia

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Blog, Digital media, Emerging technology, Smartphones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.