Ofcom's 4G Mobile Phone Auction is now underway

About time too I say, now the whole of the UK can benefit, not just in large Towns or Cities

I wonder when it will make its way to us, when will it be finally rolled out

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/new...under-way.html

Bye Bye to £2 Billion odd

The roll out of the other networks will be of a similar nature.. Largest cities first where the population is most based, easiest to get fibre to and already has established base stations..

Even if BT decides to use it's spectrum it wins for Rural projects, it will take a good while to plan and execute. With the same issues lack of suitably fast enough fibre etc. that's with even the Govt throwing wads of cash at it.

Then there is the issue of contractors.. This simply cannot happen over night EE has tied up so many contractors with its project and BT for its Fibre roll out cannot even hire enough engineers to keep it on track.. Even using former soldiers to bump up the numbers.

Add in Three, O2/Voda plus the other guys. City wide coverage is going to take time, Rural is a number of years off.

How does this mean the whole UK can benefit, the other companies are still going to target urban areas first? With the exception of maybe BT because they are getting money from the government to increase broadband coverage.

EEs rollout is brutal so the others will have to find contractors from somewhere. We could do it I guess, wouldn't be a lot of use though, instead of sitting on our shovels smoking, we'd be running constant speed tests

It will be interesting to see exactly who gets what hopefully 4G will end up being MUCH better than 3G has been!

I've a friend who has been contracting with vodafone for what must be approaching a year installing LTE equipment, pretty certain they and O2 will turn on a network similar to EE's the day they get a frequency.

Planning applications in the major cities say otherwise. To upgrade to LTE and expand 3G they have to do what EE have.. Install new cabinets, new antennas on the masts etc. There has been very little activity in the same cities that EE launched in. They need that in place before they can even start to change anything even on the out of view roof top sites.
For example in my city, a EE4G launch city the EE planning applications currently out number Voda/O2 by 10 to 1!

Both already have cell sites built for a sub 1ghz network, they wont need to build new sites and you don't need planning to change kit onsite

Any street furniture change needs planning permission. Especially in Urban areas. Openreach is an exception as it has some small agreements in place with some councils and goverment but even then a large percentage of the cabinets for fibre still need it and get held up in the planning approval process. The mobile companies do not have this agreement in place and always need planning permission unless replacing like for like... Which they will not be doing.

Well never once had to apply for planning when I used to work in network rollout for cabinet swapouts.

Planning was only needed when adding additional kit on Floor or tower

We're they like for like perhaps? 4G and a 2G/3G network share going by MBNL/EE4G as an example Needed upgraded power cabinets, lines in and complete fibre upgrades along with new mast antennas.. 2 - 3 actual cabinets. Changing the foot print at the site considerably.

I don't doubt you but what they had to do requires them to apply nearly everytime.

One in one out cab swaps, the kit going in does GSM/UMTS/LTE/LTEA from one unit

LETA.... ohshi...

I hope that the other operators have their 4G networks go live as soon as they have the spectrum. If they wait untill the end of the year it will be a complete LTE down....


I'll get me coat.

Eh?

I think he meant LTE Advanced, not sure why he is shocked though?

LTE Advanced is 100Mbit-1000Mbit? (using MIMO and bigger chunks of spectrum?) I didn't think EE was installing that stuff? At least not yet?

They aren't.

Hence my surprise that voda/o2 could be. 100Mbit would swing them in front if plans were right.

I didn't think we'd see that for a while. Sort of expecting to be milked for each technological upgrade.

while the kit is capable i'm sure it would need a future upgrade of some sort, plus the additional backhaul and capacity that is not in place yet

http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/...e-ran-advanced

http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/...0-base-station

I was fitting NSN kit 7 years ago, so i would assume this is the kit they are using now

1.4Gbps on that kit

https://www.youtube.com/user/uniteChannel

1.4Gbps.... these are the sorts of speeds i need in my life. damn you theoretical maximums!

Only its not theory, they have actually acheived it.

Afraid Lucan is right though. Nearly all the EE 2G refresh upgrades have required planning. You only need to do a search of the council planning websites for the acttive towns and cities to see them.
And in most cases the cabs are smaller I believe. Vodafone would also be changing antennas and probably upgrading microwave dishes. These nearly always need planning. The planning sites in Devon are littered with antenna replacements over the years. I don't mean for LTE I just mean generally for all networks going back 10 years or so.