The Sunday Times’ report last weekend that Government is getting ready to auction off bandwidth spectrum for the development of long term evolution (LTE) networks, sometimes referred to as ‘4G’, is good news for consumers looking for viable competition to ‘super fast broadband’ and the state. The auction itself stands to raise a minimum of €410 million but competition from rival bidders for the 15-year licenses could see this figure go as high as €500 million. In an economy used to talking about debt in the billions this might seem like chump change but the importance of having a cutting-edge broadband infrastructure the State to exact a return from cannot be understated.
So who will the main players be in the auction and what can the consumer expect to get at the end of it? The first answer is simple enough, O2, Vodafone, Three and Eircom (for Meteor and eMobile) will all be looking to upscale their networks, and have been putting aside money to do so for some time. Indeed, the auction was expected to take place in February but has been consistently pushed forward. Latest estimates are somewhere between now and June.
As for what consumers can expect, the obvious answer is speed. In preparation for this article I ran a quick speed test on my smartphone to get a quick estimate of the kind of 3G speed you can expect in a low-density urban area and got a very respectable 7Mb/s. With an LTE network that figure could be comfortable expected to 10 times that. High end predictions of have ranged from 300Mb/s to 30Gb/s been mooted. This would put LTE on a par with fibre at entry level, and could quickly surpass it. If there was ever a technology suited to municipal Wi-Fi this is it.
LTE networks are already part of the communications landscape in the US. Tablets like the current generation of iPad is LTE compatible, as are a number of smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy II LTE, Note LTE and Stratosphere; HTC’s Thunderbolt and Titan II; and LG’s Revolution. That the next generation of iPhone will have LTE is one feature we can be sure of.
Mobile customers should be aware, however, that a faster network brings with it a different mindset when it comes to selecting a mobile package. When it comes to selecting a carrier for a smartphone the deciding factors are not the best rates on calls and texts but data. Right now packages vary in capacity from 150Mb a month on O2 to 1Gb on Vodafone to unlimited (subject to fair use) on Three. Given applications like Netflix can hog data at a starting rate of 300Mb an hour (250 an hour for RTE Player) up to over 1Gb for high definition content, barely a day’s usage can have you over your allowance and into premium territory or 2c to 3c per Mb of data used - if you’re watching a lot of video that’s going to deliver a nasty case of bill shock.
LTE, like 3G before it, is essential for keeping up with trends in mobile applications, a solution to problems like public Wi-Fi and is a real competitor to fibre networks. Now the trick will be for the State not to let the spectrum be undersold. €500 million would be bargain for all concerned.
Niall Kitson is editor of TechCentral.ie www.techcentral.ie
