Mobile Operator Grabs 4G Lead In UK — But Will Anything Work On It? 81
pbahra writes "Finally, the U.K. is going to get a 4G mobile-Internet service. For a country that was once at the cutting edge of mobile telephony, its lack of high-speed mobile broadband was becoming a severe embarrassment. Everything Everywhere, Britain's largest mobile network operator, has been granted permission by U.K. regulator Ofcom to provide next-generation LTE services as early as Sept. 11. Although Ofcom's ruling is a significant step for the U.K.'s telecoms future, the choice of frequency — 1,800 MHz — means that devices that can take advantage of the much faster data speeds that LTE offers — theoretically up to 100 megabits a second — are limited. Currently the only significant market using the frequency is South Korea. While 1,800 MHz is in use in a small number of European countries, and in Australia, numbers of users are small in comparison to the U.S. This means devices may be harder to get and cost more. So, anyone who thinks their new iPad is going to zip along at 4G speeds is going to be disappointed; the new iPad only supports U.S. LTE frequencies. For the same reason, those hanging on for the new iPhone, expected to be announced on Sept. 12, in the hope that it will be LTE-compliant are unlikely to have good news. Even if there is a new iPhone, and even if it is LTE-enabled, will it operate on Everything Everywhere's frequency?"
Perhaps they should change their name (Score:2, Insightful)
to Everything Elsewhere
Re:Stupid question for the EEs here (Score:3, Insightful)
Short Answer: Yes
Longer answer: Yeeeeesssss
Really long answer: Yes, it's technically very demanding at the best of times, let alone when you have to deal with size and battery power constraints.
It could be worse... (Score:4, Insightful)
At least wireless companies in Britain haven't started soldering embedded SIM cards to the circuit board to force users to pay criminally overpriced international roaming charges from (*cough*) "strategic global roaming partners" when their customers travel overseas, instead of buying a prepaid SIM from a local network.
Sadly, this isn't an artificial, contrived example. Sprint did it to their new "world" phone, the Motorola Photon Q. Apparently, Verizon is chomping at the bit to start doing the same. When I first read about it, all I could think of was the quote from 1984 about the boot stepping on a face.