telco_telco 12/07/2013 17:20 Page 1
WIRELESS WATCH
Let 4G battle commence
Things are hotting up for 4G, as well as speeding up, notes Steve Gold.
T
he 4G speed battle (in the UK) ratcheted up a notch or two in early July when EE - the new name for Orange and T-Mobile announced that Double Speed 4G services were being rolled out to 12 cities across the UK. Coupled with business and family share plans - helping to save customers money - it is clear that EE is preparing the way for the 4G competition-fest that the UK will become later this year as other cellcos join the 4G fray. The cellco has also launched a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) LTE deal. The most interesting comment about the Double Speed 4G service - which will see typical mobile data speeds of around 30Mbps - came from EE's CEO, Olaf Swantee, who said that the reason behind the speed jump was “because we can”. These peak speeds, he explained, should put UK 4G in line with the fastest global networks, including those in Korea. According to Emeka Obiodu, (above, centre) a principal analyst, in Ovum's industry, communications and broadband practice, the EE LTE updates are clearly aimed at giving it a competitive edge as other players launch their own LTE service later this year. “Fleshing out its shared plans for customers, and positioning it as a way for families to save money, is a canny move in today's austerity-dominated society,” he said, adding
that the ability to cap costs should appeal to families who will get better clarity on what their telecoms spend will be. “We also liked how EE is going to use the shared plans as a nudge to push customers into a higher-prized plan. This is what Verizon Wireless has done successfully in the US an d is one reason why their ARPU is rising,” he explained. Obiodu went on to say that the launch of a pay-as-you-go LTE service is a tactic to corner the market for sporadic users of mobile broadband. According to Obiodu, it is safe to assume
and if its rivals do not have the capability to do that, EE could have quite a solid marketing message," he added. The turning point for LTE for me personally - was when I saw a segment of BBC technology show Click earlier in the year with a cellco's van driving around the grounds of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, with a test rig producing real-world data transfers of 150 Mbps. These kinds of speeds are actually faster than landline broadband services, even the 80/20 Mbps service
that other telcos will want to lock customers into some sort of contract and so EE could tap this opportunity for a while. “The doubling of LTE speeds in several cities across the UK is a nice headline. But, on its own, we don't believe it is a stand-out game changer as telcos struggle to sell LTE as a speedier network. Instead, its merit is that it gives EE a base from which to offer LTE Steve Gold packages tiered on From his base in speed and usage Sheffield, England, Steve has been a which are far accepttelecommunications able to customers,” he journalist for 26 years, said. “That is going to 21 of them full-time. be the interesting E-mail him at [email protected] thing to watch out for
offered by BT in the UK under its Infinity and wholesale FTTC (Fibre-to-the-Cabinet) facilities. And with research firm Point Topic having announced that super-fast broadband update (defined as 30Mbps-plus) in the UK has topped the four million line mark, it is clear where 4G cellular services are heading: speed, speed and more speed. But wait - as they - say, there's more, as the Karlsruhe Institute in Germany revealed in May of this year that it had used the 240 GHz spectrum to deliver a peak data speed of 40 Gbps over a distance of one kilometre – a data transfer rate said to equal the transmission of a com-
plete DVD in less than one second. According to the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), the new world record complements the transmission capacity of optical fibre. “In the future, such radio links will be able to close gaps in providing broadband Internet by supplementing the network in rural areas and places which are difficult to access,” said the Institutes. According to the researchers, atmosphere in the 200 and 280 GHz frequency range shows low attenuation, enabling broadband directional radio links. “This makes our radio link easier to install compared to free-space optical systems for data transmission. It also shows better robustness in poor weather conditions such as fog or rain,” said Jochen Antes of KIT. The potential revenue stream from LTE (aka 4G) is not to be ignored. In the US, T-Mobile USA - the minor player to Verizon Wireless and AT&T in the 4G LTE stakes - has announced that it has acquired key AWS spectrum from US Cellular in the Mississippi Valley region. The $308m acquisition will allow the cellco to expand its 4G LTE network to 29 new markets that house some 32m people. My own view on 4G LTE bandwidth is that it will become as valuable to the cellco industry as landing slots are to the airline industry - with cellcos trading spare bandwidth at 'telephone number' pricing. More's the shame that the UK seems to have fallen behind in the 4G-rollout stakes, but the imminent launch of a range of 4G services from several players in the UK market in the months ahead should move things forward.
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