And despite how good 4G is at there being less blackspots compared to 3G, I bet there will be loads and loads 4G blackspot areas in the United States right? Also, I bet that around the border areas with Mexico and Canada, careful planning and intense negotiations must have been required to help avoid conflicts with each other's services, not only with 3G/4G but with digital terrestrial television as well right?

Half of what they call 4G in the US is already here in the UK, we just don't call HSPA+ 4G, which the US sometimes do. We don't have LTE yet though apart from the closed trials.

I'm sure that in the built up cities there would be good coverage but further out I suspect many blackspots might be the case....it's a massive country that's for sure!

Can't even get 3G where I am !

Whilst we are all happy, as you are, you pay over the odds, for what we get now, then so it will stay.

When just 50 miles from London the maximum speed some can get ranges from 512k to 1.5MB, it's pretty poor really.

If 4G was a cure for cancer, then I would be making a big fuss about us not offically having 4G.

Your in a forum, in the sub section for 'mobile phones' your going to have large amount of the people who come in this sub section of the forum annoyed by this news.

For me 512K is alright for general surfing and checking updates. The bit that bugs me is latency which you get on 3G and thats the design problem. 3G isn't designed for the high capacity high demands we require now... No one thought of smartphones in the early 00's as they are now... 3G is not really designed for this i.e. live streaming media. LTE has the infrastructure and design to make these type of services work.

I just watched the lastest episode of The Gadget Show via Demand 5, and Suzi was talking about herself being one of the trialists of 4G and did a side by side test of a 3G phone and a 4G phone loading up an HD YouTube video clip. But at no point whatsoever did she moan and groan about "how we lag behind other countries". The other presenters were later on talking about 4G and Jason was saying about how lovely the benefits of 4G are and why can't we have 4G now? But again, neither him nor the other presenters moan and groan about "how we lag behind other countries".

Are you still going on about that:sleep:

I was just pointing out how they could start a subject on 4G on a popular TV show without mentioning "lagging behind" and heck if I had started a thread here about 4G, I wouldn't mention "lagging behind".

The fact is we are lagging behind... but both LTE and HSPA+ aren't really 4G (LTE you could argue as the infrustructure and technology is near but technically it is 3.9G).

LTE will be lovely... but what handsets can actually run it? The manufactures has got to make the devices to take advantage of the new signal. And don't get me started on the poor battery you get when you are on LTE....

And I am waiting with anticipation for the "we lag behind on 5G" propaganda!

Out of all the tedious garbage you have posted on this thread (a thread about a delay in 4g implementation by the way, not about how bad a year you've had*), I think the most nonsensical thing you said was The Gadget Show was

. Outrageous.

Second most tedious, is of course, your overuse of the word propaganda.:yawn:

* I could've sworn there was a General Advice section of DS for this kind of stuff.

The LTE Coverage in major cities in the USA is patchy. We're not that far behind. The size difference between the USA & UK makes no difference as they have many millions more customers, gaining them millions more profits, allowing much more staff/engineers therefore allowing them to roll out just as fast. It's all relative.

We (The UK) have extensive HSPA Plus coverage between the networks.. i think thats ok for now.

First generation 3G chips were dire on batteries... The scientists are far better prepared for mobile technology now, so i'd expect the LTE battery drain to be much better in forthcoming chips much faster roll out than the energy efficient chips were at the start of the 3G roll out. The phones themselves will come out quick enough, but no point in releasing a phone when there is no market once again proving the roll out world wide is very sparse... they will accommodate the UK's frequency choice quickly too.

The UK isn't behind by much and as the networks have already been integrating this into current network designs as soon as we get 800mhz granted there roll out will be one of the fastest we've ever seen..... far faster than it took the UK networks to roll out UTMS! This time in two years we will have caught up with this USA.

They haven't even sorted out battery for our normal 3G phone... I don't know of any phones or devices that can last more than a day when it is awake for more then 6 hours (ok it is due to the screen but hey, it is still part of the device)... They need a phone with at least 10000mAh. What they have in the HTC Thunderbolt or even the new LTE Galaxy Nexus is just not good enough. I think it last like 8-10 hours idle...

At the moment there is no chipsets out there for dual modes... I think the new Qualcomm S4 chipset allows for this (not out yet) but it still doesn't solves to power consumption. There are research out there to improve battery by 10x, using new battery methods or improving the way your mobile talks to the network, but within the next 2-3 years nothing is going to change.

At the moment, I only see 4G (it isn't even 4G) to provide rual areas with fast broadband of upto 100Mbps which is what this country needs... this is where the gains will be seen and we are in desprate need for this, but for mobile devices LTE won't make too much of a difference. Until they sort out the power demands LTE won't really work on mobiles. At best you will just turn it on when you need to.

I do hope roll out of so call 4G means better investment in battery technology, or even self wireless charging... but LTE on Verizon has been out since 2010 and nothing has improved in battery. I think this is the biggest barrier in widespread 4G adoption.

In some ways you have to respect Apple for not making the iPhone 4S LTE compatible. If it did it will die within 2 hours instead of 8 hours on HSPA+ 14.4Mbps... LOL

Since 4G can provide speeds of upto 1Gbps, 4G should be used to provide rural areas with fast broadband of upto 1Gbps.

slight snag, I live in a rural area & 3g network hasn't reached here, no sign they intend to install it either! -- 4g could well be here by 2022 if lucky I suppose

An area that never even had 3G is a prime candidate for 4G!

3.9G? How did you work that one out?

What would you say is full 4G, then?

4G is either LTE-Advance or WiMAX-Advance... These are candidates for 4G. Release 8 of the LTE-Advance can only hit 300Mbps downstream so there is a lot of work to get to getting 1Gbps (theorically). I am not sure and don't quote me but I think 1Gbps has not been achieved yet...

Edit: Sorry I was wrong.. Release 10 looks like it has hit 1Gbps: http://3gpp.org/SA-51-Highlights

LTE was meant to be 4G until they decommission I think last year when the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) said it wasn't good enough

But LTE-Advance and LTE are using the same packet switch network, so it is better to go that direction as it has it advantages in lower latency and much more bandwidth.

Edit: And also LTE allows for IPv6 and fixed IP addresses when switching mast... very important advantage over 3.75G i.e. HSPA+

I am not sure on WiMAX though.. this uses the IEEE standard but Mobile WiMAX was not well adopted so I doubt WiMAX-advance will be used in the mainstream

And regarding 100Mbps in rual areas, that is the point of auctioning the free spectrum left from digital TV switch over. All those free up radio waves will be use for next generation broadband which hopefully will delivery full broadband coverage to the whole of the UK.. well I hope!!! This is what this topic is about, auctioning of the free spectrum and reallocating it. Thats why Ofcom has got to get there act together and get this out as soon as possible!!!

Looks like the moan and groan propaganda in terms of us not having 4G will be dying down: http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news...n-london-63676

Are we happy now?

And there's also Everything Everywhere that are readying the network for 4G and crossing everything that Ofcom will allow them to launch it by the end of the year. I can't help but think that the UK Broadband project should be more targeted at rural areas where the technology would be of more benefit, but then the LTE bands they're using won't travel far so that would add to the overall cost.

Everyone seems to have forgot... 4G can also be provided over 1800Mhz. Thats exactly what Orange & T-Mobile UK are doing by years end. Rendering this post null & void.