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View Full Version : 4G mobile phone launch ‘before Christmas’



thelostone
15-03-2012, 09:14 PM
New superfast mobile networks from Everything Everywhere could be up and running by the end of the year, communications regulator Ofcom has confirmed.
Everything Everwhere, the owners of Orange and T-Mobile, has applied to Ofcom to be allowed to reuse its existing mobile phone spectrum for the new, faster mobile broadband services.
A four-week consultation will close on 17 April, and Everything Everywhere?s competitors are however expected by some analysts to seek to stop it stealing a march on their own plans.
A Vodafone spokesman said "We share the regulator?s desire to see the next generation of mobile internet services rolled out quickly and placed within the reach of many more people in rural areas. But we seriously doubt that consumers? best interests will be served by giving one company a significant head start before any of its competitors have a clear path to 4G."
As rival operators do not have suitable spectrum, some sources believe they may equally see it as a way of getting the firm to fund what is likely to be an expensive marketing campaign to educate consumers about what 4G is and what equipment is needed to use it.
Ofcom is in the process of auctioning off 4G spectrum that will be vacated when analogue television is switched off later this year.