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29 Aug 2013

4G expands, but are we ready for ‘super-fast’ mobiles?

Mobile phone company EE launched it’s 4G data services ten months ago. Now its rivals O2 and Vodafone are offering their own services, but is 4G really all its cracked up to be?

The switch-on by Vodafone begins in London, with O2 joining them in the capital, and adding services in Leeds and Bradford. The roll-out is due to reach thirteen cities by the end of the year.

These include London, Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield.

Both networks said that they want to cover 98 per cent of the UK’s population within little more than two years.

But they are far behind the first mover EE, which said its “superfast” network now available in 105 towns and cities across the country.

And building that network without disrupting existing services is likely to pose the biggest problem to newcomers in the market.

Moreover, due to the terms of their contracts, the two newcomers are unable to offer their services to users of Apple’s latest iPhone until the US company releases an update.

Apple has not said when that will be, but the telephone companies are hoping it will be released in the autumn.

And then there is the cost. Vodafone spent more than £800m on securing the right to operate its 4G network, while it cost O2 £550m for a proportion of the lowest frequency spectrum.

The former claimed to have signed up 20,000 customers already. but EE’s latest financial results show that its service is being used by 687,000 people, partly driven by the company cutting its prices in July.

That figure is now believed to have surpassed 750,000 and EE claimed that it is one target to hit one million 4G customers by the end of the year.

According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics earlier this month, smartphones were the single most popular devices used to access the internet.

More than half of British adults used a smartphone to get online in 2013. While that represented only a small rise on last year, it was more than double the estimate for 2010, which stood at 24 per cent.

However, some need convincing that it is worth switching over.

Rural areas

One Channel 4 News follower tweeted: “Before worrying about 4g for some, how about making sure that everywhere has decent 3g? Huge rural areas with nothing.”

But another, Stephen Howie, wrote: “I’ve had 4G on EE for over a month now and I’m still blown away but just how fast and instant it is. Totally worth the dosh.”

Paul Miner, the senior Planning campaigner for the Campaign to Protect Rural England said that rural areas want to see the rollout, but they want to see it done well. There are fears in many areas that the infrastructure required will tarnish the local countryside.

He said: “We have always supported the growth of communications networks in rural areas, they can provide a lot of benefits. But we have concerns about their designs – in many cases, they tend to have a very intrusive appearance.

“Where possible, operators should generally try to work together to share masts and sites, so that the visual impact is reduced.”

He said that the CPRE wanted all infrastructure to be buried underground wherever possible: “We can have a 21st Century system without harming the landscape.”

The CPRE believes the proliferation of high speed internet connections to rural areas could help economies damaged by falling agricultural employment because it will become easier to work from home.

Here’s what you said about 4G: