UK left waiting for 150Mbits/sec mobile broadband

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 3 Jul 2009 at 16:21

Ericsson's 150Mbits/sec mobile broadband technology is ready to roll, but the UK could be left trailing once again.

In a demonstration at Ascot racecourse earlier today, PC Pro was given a glimpse at Ericsson's successor to current 3G technologies, dubbed Long Term Evolution.

LTE uses existing network infrastructure, meaning mobile providers don't need to rip up their base stations and start again, significantly reducing the speed and cost of deployment, according to Ericsson.

The technology is theoretically capable of hitting 150Mbits/sec and though the demonstration ran at such speeds, the company admits they're unlikely to be replicated in the real world.

Pressed on what sort of speeds customers can expect when LTE is rolled out, a spokesperson claimed it would suggest an improvement of around "ten times that on than their current experience on a 3.6Mbits/sec mobile broadband connection."

Indeed, misleading speed claims turn out to annoy the researchers at Ericsson as much as the rest of us. "The technical guys know that advertising those big speeds is damaging, but they're the numbers the marketing guys want to push," says John Cunliffe, Ericsson's chief technology officer.

"It's difficult, if one company is advertising the maximum speed, for another to then turn around and advertise the likely speed. It's going to need everybody to be honest."

Though that 150Mbits/sec headline figure may be dramatically wide of reality, Ericsson remains confident we'll get there. "Our roadmap will see us move from 150Mbits/sec, to 300Mbits/sec and then 600Mbits/sec during the first phase of LTE. Advanced LTE will top 1Gbit/sec, that's the real 4G technology, but that's a long way off," adds Cunliffe.

Unfortunately, while the technology is in place the UK may be waiting some time for it to appear. The US and China will be rolling out LTE later this year, but we have to wait for the redistribution of the 900MHz spectrum currently held by Vodafone and O2.

This is not expected to happen until the end of next year, and even then Ericsson claims it could be 2012 before LTE begins to saturate the UK market.