Following on from the October announcement of the live trial of 4G services in Cornwall, Everything Everywhere has unveiled plans to heavily invest in 4G LTE and better integrate the Orange and T-Mobile networks.
£1.5 billion will be invested in future-proofing the so-called super network over the next three years. The plan is to build up Everything Everywhere into a “world class data network and industry leading” proposition, rolling out 4G services not only for mobile users, but to also “connect parts of the country with little or no mobile broadband.”
Fotis Karonis, Chief Technical Officer, Everything Everywhere, said in a statement that: “Everything Everywhere is committed to building a world-class 4G network for Britain. We are devoting huge resources – including our 15,000 workforce and significant investments in technology – and already trialling, learning and laying the ground-work so that we are prepared to introduce 4G services as soon as it’s feasible.”
Olaf Swantee, CEO of Everything Everywhere added that demand for mobile data has increased by “250% over the past two years,” driving this large-scale investment.
“We are making these investments so we can deliver on our ambition to provide the UK’s most reliable, biggest and best mobile data network. We believe that the UK requires a 21st century infrastructure and are committed to rolling out 4G as soon as possible to support growing data use, connect parts of the country with little or no mobile broadband, and drive economic growth,” he said.
Switched On
As well a making future plans for LTE deployment, which will ultimately depends on results of the 2012 spectrum auction, Everything Everywhere is motoring ahead with it’s ‘Big Switch On’ plans.
The Big Switch On, which began last month, will enable “Orange and T-Mobile customers to use 2G and 3G signals from either of the networks and benefit from fast data speeds in more places.” This is a phased roll out which is in it’s final stages now and is due to be complete “within weeks” according to the press release.
According to figures, Orange and T-Mobile customers are already benefitting from the Switch On; a 20% reduction in dropped calls in local areas has been reported and more than 1.33 billion calls and 5.5 billion texts have been sent while using signal from an alternate network. In addition, 326 billion kilobytes of data has been used in the same fashion since the 3G switch-on in October. That’s a lot of time spent on Facebook.
Image source: Ken Banks, kiwanja.net
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