A further 18 million to be spent on super-fast mobile broadband

The latest support for research that will help to further advancements in fourth generation (4G) technology will come in the form of an €18 million investment from the EU on 1st January 2010.

It has been announced that the advanced technology known as Long Term Evolution (LTE), which compared to the current 3G networks will provide mobile broadband speeds that will be as much as a hundred times faster, will be the first to receive research funding from the European Commission.

The GSM standard became the backbone of modern mobile telephony because of large investment by Europe and thanks large amounts of research funding from the EU since 2004 LTE technology is fast becoming the firm favourite for most next generation mobile broadband networks. As much as 80 percent of mobile networks around the world now use the GSM standard and this is because of the strength of the single market in the EU and the joint research carried out by Europe.

“With LTE technologies, Europe’s research ‘know-how’ will continue to set the tone for the development of mobile services and devices around the globe, just as we did in the past decades with the GSM standard,” said Viviane Reding, the EU’s Commissioner for Telecoms and Media. “LTE technologies will turn mobile phones into powerful mobile computers. Millions of new users will get ultra high-speed internet access on their portable devices, wherever they are. This will create tremendous opportunities and plenty of space for growing the digital economy.”

When this advanced technology is compared to the current 3G networks that are being used Long Term evolution provides connection speeds through its newest wireless technology of up to 100Mpbs, which can be as much as ten times quicker.

Source – Egovmonitor