It could be 2012 before the UK gets 4G mobile broadband

The UK could see delays in the release of the technology that will provide fourth generation (4G) mobile broadband until as late as 2012 even though the technology is currently being developed.

Europe, China and the US have already started to implement 4G mobile broadband technology like Long Term Evolution or WiMAX which has put them ahead of the UK according to a popular IT website.

It has also advised that until O2 and Vodafone have agreed to redistribute portions of their 900MHz spectrum bandwidth the UK will be able to take part in the current next generation schemes it is currently planning an will continue to fall behind other countries that are already in the process of deploying advanced technology.

Ericsson is one such company that has advised that its own mobile broadband technology will not be rolled out until 2012 because the spectrum reallocation is not expected until next year.

It would also be unlikely for LTE to be able to reach its maximum throughput speeds of 150Mbps because it currently relied upon an infrastructure that has already been implemented so it would have to use older technology according to Ericsson, who develop laptop and netbook mobile broadband components throughout the world.

The chief technology officer for Ericsson, John Cunliffe advised that compared to the average speed of 3.6Mbps that is currently available using mobile broadband connection the speeds offered by LTE 4G technology would provide almost ten times faster mobile broadband connection for consumers.

The 800MHz spectrum band has now been cleared to be set aside to be used by the next generation mobile broadband services according to the recent announcement that was made by the telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, which should allow technologies like LTE to catch up, albeit slowly, with the rest of the world.